Chapter Thirty-Five

I Can't Have This

Part Two

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Kelvaran looked down at Kazia's hands gripping the dagger and brushed his fingers over the back of her hand.

“Do you like this?” he asked with a tinge of sadness.

Kazia loosened her hands around the dagger and gazed at it fondly.

“I love it,” she said quietly.

“This belonged to my sister,” Kelvaran said, his sadness growing. “Given to her by my parents.”

“Oh! Kel,” Kazia protested, pushing the knife toward him. “I can't have this...”

“I want you to have it,” he insisted. He moved forward to press himself close to her, wrapping his hands over her hands around the knife, trapping it between them.

“It's not appropriate,” Kazia said, gazing up into his eyes with a bewildered expression. “I'm... I'm a Devratha,” she said, her voice full of self-loathing. “You know that my father probably...”

Kelvaran silenced her with a gentle kiss.

“I want you to know that my intentions are sincere,” he whispered. “And that I know that you are not him, and that you are not with him.”

“I know all of that without this,” Kazia said, her eyes pleading with him to take back the dagger. “But you can't have many things left from your family, and this... this is the sort of thing you would give as a... as a promise gift.”

Kelvaran sucked in a breath and looked away over her shoulder.

“It doesn't have to mean that,” he said, his voice choking almost imperceptibly. “It's probably too early... and perhaps you wouldn't...”

Kazia looked up at him sharply.

“Kel,” she said in a rebuking tone reminiscent of their Mistress, “look at me.”

He turned his face down and she furrowed her brow at the tears gathering in his eyes.

“Do you think you're not coming back tomorrow?”

“That's a possibility every time I go,” he answered.

“But this time feels different,” she said.

She looked at him for a long moment, clearly struggling to gather thoughts, so he waited. She finally lowered her face away from him.

“It isn't that I wouldn't consider it,” she said softly. “Just that none of this is anything I ever thought that I could have. I'm not prepared... I don't know how to do this.”

“Neither do I,” he said, lowering his head to graze his forehead over her hair. “I'm just following my heart. I've always been impulsive, just ask Mistress Amelys.”

Kazia laughed, but then looked up at him again, her expression serious.

“What if you really can't endure my... peculiarity? If you make me promises now and then later begin to find me tiresome...”

“I think you'll begin to find my bitter disappointment with the world tiresome first,” he countered.

Kazia stared at him at a loss, then looked down at the dagger caught between them.

“If we can't last, then this...”

“Then I'll still know that my sister's legacy is in the right hands,” he said. “Nereyna was almost as proficient with small blades as you are... almost.”

Kazia smiled and took a step back, drawing her hands along with the dagger out of his grasp. She looked longingly at it again, then replaced it in its box.

“I can't have this yet,” she said firmly. When he seemed ready to protest she emphasized, “Not yet.”

She took the box back to the mantel and set it down gently, tracing a finger over its pearl inlay once more. She turned back to him.

“You just keep it here for now,” she said, “If it really is meant to be mine, then I'll collect it in due time.”

Unable to hide his disappointment, Kelvaran's face reddened to his ears and down his neck. Kazia hurried over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist again and resting her forehead against his shoulder.

“There is no need for embarrassment,” she said. She smiled up at him. “If you had taken your potion, you would know how your gesture has made me more certain that this is real, and how my heart is so full that it hurts.” She raised herself on her toes and kissed his lips. “In a very good way,” she concluded.

“I should take the potion now,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

Kazia nodded and released him. He went to his lab to swallow a vial of the potion, waiting there until he was able to push his energy to the surface before returning. There was no longer any need for apprehension about its effects. With diligent practice over the last two weeks, they had developed enough endurance that they wouldn't be quickly overwhelmed.

“I don't think you should use the potion tomorrow,” Kazia said as he entered the sitting room. “Not until you know why you've been summoned. If you have to get out...”

“I'll be careful,” he answered.

“You must be more than careful in the Manor,” she warned. “You'll be amid Gorvan's full company there. His Alchemists are not to be trifled with.”

Kelvaran took her in his arms and gazed meaningfully into her eyes. “I promise that will never let my guard down.”

“If you see my brother,” Kazia said wistfully, “just... be kind to him.” Kelvaran nodded in agreement. “And if you must flatter Yilina-”

Kelvaran cut off her words with a deep and sensual kiss as the potion began to take effect, twining its first wispy tendrils through both of their ethereal auras. Kazia pulled back breathlessly.

“Yes,” she whispered, “kiss her like that. She'll do anything for you.”

Kelvaran looked stunned.

“You really don't know how to do this, do you?” he asked, utterly perplexed.

“What?” Kazia retorted. “Should I be jealous and possessive, even at the cost of your life?”

He held her more tightly, his gaze searching as he could now feel the strength of her determination, and the depth of her feelings for him.

“If I am detained,” he said thoughtfully, “it will probably be meant to provoke you into coming after me again.”

“Mistress Amelys took the portal away from me,” she answered.

Kelvaran smirked.

“Good,” he said. He released Kazia, smiling at the indignant reaction he felt from her. “Perhaps I shouldn't show you this after all.”

“Show me what?” Kazia demanded. “Now I'm certainly curious.”

Kelvaran stepped away from her and closed his eyes in deep concentration. After a moment, he held a hand out and summoned a small spark of ethereal energy. He opened his eyes and began to stretch his fingers apart. Very slowly, and with an apparent struggle, the orb soon grew to the size of an apple in his palm. Kazia stared at him, her gaze shifting from the orb to his eyes and back again.

“But you've taken the potion?” she said incredulously.

Kelvaran nodded and dispersed the orb, shaking his arm out afterward.

“The thought struck me some time ago that since there is still a small amount of ethereal energy that remains in the reservoir and that the energy pushed to the surface is still linked to that energy in the reservoir, that I might be able to grasp the remaining energy and use it to pull some back in where it can be accessed. It's difficult, but I've been improving daily. It's not enough for a portal yet, but if I had to defend myself, I think there's enough.”

Kazia threw her arms around him again.

“You're working very hard to not let me worry, aren't you?” she said.

“Is that accomplished?” he answered.

She looked up at him. “You're working hard to solve all of this mess and I'm just hiding like the princess in the tower.”

“No,” he shook his head. “Don't undervalue your contributions. That transmitter has already gleaned significant intelligence, and now that it's been replicated all of our operatives will have one. Besides intelligence, it's also keeping them all safer.”

“It was your invention,” she protested.

“My failed invention,” he countered. “It wouldn't work without you.”

Kazia smiled slyly. “All I did was find the catalyst it wanted.”

“Blood of One Who Loves the Maker?”

Kazia shook her head. “That didn't work,” she told him. “Don't you remember when it began to work?”

Kelvaran gazed into her eyes thoughtfully.

“My empathic sense was cut off in the University Archive,” Kazia said softly, “but the next morning was the first time I ever felt you love me.”

“Blood of One the Maker Loves...” Kelvaran mused. His mood suddenly shifted to inquisitive skepticism. “How could it change in the Artifact after being separated from the Maker?” he wondered. “There was a Thalesian Alchemist a couple of centuries ago who questioned whether ethereal energy maintains its own form of sentience apart from its source. What was his name?”

Kazia pulled his face down to kiss him passionately. The empathic entanglement surged between them and Kazia pulled away with a gasp.

“Would you like to go investigate the sentience of ethereal energy now,” she said, her voice low and sultry, her hands moving to the buttons of his waistcoat, “or shall we make better use of the time before you must leave for your mission?”

“I think...” Kelvaran whispered, equally breathless, “...that can wait...”

 

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