Page 48 of Xel: Broken Bond
By the time eight o’clock rolled around, I was exhausted. And it seemed from the way he kept yawning that my master felt the same. In the end, we hadn’t got any work done at all in the old barn. After Aiden had left, my master had found a clean set of clothes for Rohinavon – a shirt of mine that was too big for her, and a pair of sleeping shorts that just about fit over her wide hips, since they were originally designed to be loose. He’d shown her to the bathroom for a shower, and set up the spare bedroom for her to sleep in.
We’d had to explain everything to Bo as well, since it was going to be impossible to keep an extra guest in the house a secret from her. She’d been shocked, but she’d agreed to keep things quiet, understanding the enormous risks if word got out. Then there had been the afternoon feeding and cleaning to do, and my master and I had both spent a significant amount of time looking up various ideas on the grid to try and figure out how this master plan of Rohinavon’s could work.
There was a part of me that privately hoped the Parliament would say no to the entire plan. It was so huge and terrifyingthat I didn’t even feel ashamed of the quiet desire to back out of having anything to do with it.
But there was another side of me that was clamouring to get moving, to rebuild a future for the Vangravians unlike anything they could imagine. To end generations of boys who had been abandoned and forgotten, who had never known real love, be it from a mother, a friend or a lover. The dimari, for the most part, were tools, a means to an end, and while I’d seen the clear affection Aiden held for Kade, I was far from convinced that that was the norm, as far as dimari owners went. My own experience with my first master had fallen well short of the lofty ideals my trainers had espoused, and I hardly thought I could be the only dimari in the galaxy to have suffered such a fate.
In the evening, I prepared dinner for us all, attempting to make a Wasopish meal of stewed meat and spiced greens, but I was so distracted that I burned the meat, having to apologise profusely to both my master and our guest. The food was edible, but far from the standard I expected of myself, and I found I immensely disliked the feeling of letting my master down in front of a stranger.
After the meal was finished and the kitchen tidy, my master checked that the front door was locked three times. That alone made me realise how on edge he was about having Rohinavon here. As she’d already warned us, if any Vangravian found out where she was, they would do everything in their power to kill her. And by extension, us, if we were seen to be harbouring a wanted criminal.
“If you have to let Bribie out in the night…” my master began to say, as the munsend settled down on the living room rug.
“Check the door is locked,” I finished for him. “I will.”
“Sorry, I’m being paranoid,” he apologised.
“No, you’re not,” Rohinavon said. “You’re being cautious. And we’re going to need plenty more of that before this is over.And while you’re here, I wanted to say how profoundly grateful I am that you decided to help me. I know I’m causing a world of trouble for you, and whatever the ethics of the situation might be, it’s still costing you a lot to get involved in this. So… thank you.”
My master nodded, then stifled another yawn. “I really hope we’ll be able to do something constructive long term. But it’s been a long day, so for now, I’m going to bed. You don’t have to go to sleep yet, but when you do, please turn off the living room lights?”
“Actually, I think I’m happy to go to bed now myself,” Rohinavon said, which was a relief to me. I was desperately tired, but at the same time, a dimari might normally be expected to stay up and entertain any guests, if that was required to make a good impression of their master’s household. But if Rohinavon was going to bed, that meant I could, too.
“Master, may I…” I cut myself off, realising what I’d said. I was simply too tired to be thinking clearly about what I was supposed to call him, and decades of habit had taken over his more recent orders. “Sorry. I meant sir. May I speak with you for a moment?” I asked him. His brow rose in an expression that could either have been surprise or concern, but once again, I was too tired to tease out the nuances of his mood.
“Yeah, sure. Do you want to come into my bedroom?”
I took that to be an invitation, rather than a question of preference. I wanted desperately to go into his bedroom, and to not come out again until morning, and I honestly didn’t care at this stage whether that meant I would be sleeping in his bed beside him, or on the floor at his feet. But in this case, I suspected the question had a more pragmatic purpose – namely to give us some privacy away from Rohinavon.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, following him down the hall. Mr Beans dashed between my legs and into my bedroom, no doubtanticipating sleeping on my bed with me again, and I was sorry to disappoint him when I kept going to my master’s room. I’d be back soon enough, though, and I was sure Mr Beans would forgive me for the delay.
“What’s on your mind?” my master asked, once he’d shut the door. He seemed tense, standing in the middle of the room, back straight, brow furrowed. Even the slight familiarity we’d developed over the last couple of days seemed to have evaporated in the face of the enormous challenge in front of us.
“I wanted to apologise for volunteering to father Rohinavon’s child,” I blurted out, the guilt weighing on me in a way I hadn’t expected.
But my master seemed surprised at the apology. “Xel, it’s fine. It’s your decision. I mean, we still have to find out from Aiden whether any of this is going to work, but you don’t have to apologise for it.”
“But you are my master,” I pointed out, needing him to understand why what I’d done was inappropriate. Or perhaps I was just hoping that he’d be a little more invested in the whole thing than he seemed to be. He’d been quiet for most of the afternoon, and he hadn’t even said much when Aiden had been here, aside from asking the odd question here and there. I wasn’t sure how to interpret his silence, but after three years of my previous master saying almost nothing about my day to day living, I was hoping forsomesort of reaction from my new master. Even if he was angry about it, that at least meant he cared. “I live in your house,” I went on, when he didn’t reply. “I work for you. Decisions like this will necessarily affect you. So I should at least discuss them with you first.” Kade had displayed much better behaviour than me, stating that he was interested, but acknowledging that he needed to speak to his master about it first.
“Look, it’s fine,” my master said, sounding a little fed up about it. “Nobody’s made any firm decisions about all this yet, but it’s good to know you want to help out. I’ll keep it in mind.” He avoided my gaze as he said it, and shoved his hands into his pockets. No, my master was not at all happy about this.
I was on the verge of apologising again when a new and different thought occurred to me. As a dimari, I’d spent a long time being told that if my master was ever unhappy with me, even the slightest bit, then it was my own fault, and I needed to identify what I had done wrong and fix it. But… Cole was not my master. And while that didn’t absolve me of the responsibility to serve him dutifully, it did give me a certain amount of emotional distance to think that perhaps… Perhaps his bad mood was nothing to do with me? Perhaps he was upset about something else entirely?
“Is there anything else you need?” he asked me… and in a bold break from protocol, I said, “Yes, actually. I’m wondering if…” How was I supposed to phrase such an uncharacteristic question? “You seem upset. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” He still wasn’t looking at me.
“Are you concerned about Rohinavon having a weapon with her?” He’d looked quite shocked when she’d pulled it out, though neither he nor Aiden had tried to talk her into giving it up.
My master shrugged. “It’s not ideal. But I can understand why she needs it. And given that neither you or I have any weapons, it’s probably not the worst thing for her to have one, just in case anything goes wrong.”
“But you’re still not happy about this,” I pointed out gently. Perhaps, if I pushed him too hard, he would kick me out of his room. But I had nothing to gain by giving up.
My master sighed and shook his head. He wandered over to the bed and sat down heavily on the end of it. “This is going to lead to a shitload of people being everywhere,” he muttered, dropping his head to rest in his hands. “I’m going to have to talk to the Alliance Parliament, to explain how we found Rohinavon in the barn. And then we’re going to have soldiers around protecting her, until Aiden figures out somewhere for her to live permanently. And given how isolated this property is, I can just see Aiden asking to use this as a delivery point for the incubators. And every step of the way, it’s just going to be more and more people staring at me, and asking stupid questions about ‘What the hell happened to your face?’ and god forbid I actually tell them, because then they’ll ask for details about how it all happened, and spout effusive sympathy over the fact that my sister died, and no one ever figures out how to justshut the fuck upabout it all.”
I gaped at him. His sister had died? He’d had a sister? I was about to ask what had happened, but caught myself in time. He’d literally just said he didn’t want people asking a bunch of nosy questions. Bo had told me he’d been injured in a fire, but until now, that was all I’d known about it.
So what the heck was I supposed to say now? Was I supposed to comfort him? Or just pretend he’d never said anything? Either response could potentially be taken the wrong way. “I would never insist you talk about something you’re not comfortable with,” I said in the end, deciding to take his words at face value. “But I am sorry to hear about your sister.” I left it at that – a brief acknowledgement of the situation, without trying to drag him through all the details.