His initial reaction was to withdraw from her familiarity immediately, but he controlled himself and picked at his teeth as if her words had no effect on him. "Respect? You are a spoiled little Princess. What do you know of respect?"

His words stung. Kara's face mottled red, and she sat up straight—her defiance and pride coming to her rescue, replacing the gentle camaraderie they'd developed, and Rion instantly regretted the harsh way he had sounded. He'd wanted to get back at her for calling him arrogant, and he had. Kara's chin was pointed as far away from him as she could get.

For a moment he wanted their light play to continue, it had been utterly unprecedented, and very entertaining. But she was back to her normal distance from him, her mind shield erected, and her eyes turned inward.

"In my culture respect is not offered to women. There is no Queen." Rion observed pebbles she'd lined up while they'd spoken.

"But Quildor believes himself to be a King?"

He picked at his tooth, where a deeper snag had lodged. "Not so much a King. Government is controlled by the Quarso, under the direction of Quildor. I would consider him a military leader."

Kara snorted. "He thought of himself as the King of Etrusia. That is why he wants it back. He started a war to defend his right to it. You are quite delusional. You don't even understand your own government." 

Rion felt the heat of his own annoyance creep up. She was right, even if he could barely admit it. She knew that government depended on more than one man's lust for power. Rion had been born to this life. He knew no other. He'd never questioned it until now. Just the term exile was drilled into him as the greatest of injustices. Worth fighting to rectify. Worth giving his life and his freedom for.

Quildor did not care about those who lived under his protection.

He expected their service and fealty. In return, he had the Quarso to protect them from Shadow Eaters and rogue Salimantors. He offered no government-- only survival. He had Auditorium full of will-less assimilated walking slaves to care for his immediate needs and the needs of his Quarso. He didn't care about the villagers-- they were alive, and they were exiled Etrusians, and when he returned to his rightful place as King of his undersea dome, he would take them with him. 

Or not.

He screwed up his nose in irritation. There was no real government the likes of which he'd read about in their makeshift schools. He knew the people on land were illiterate for the most part--- just surviving. Barely.

What did Quildor actually offer?

"Quildor has the Council Woman, Sebille." Kara had noticed his angry expression.

He shrugged that off in disgust. "He is not married to her, he does not sleep with her. She is his witch."

"Witch!"

"She wields her magic and he uses her."

Kara's face contorted in incredulous rage. "She was a Council Woman!"

"I have no idea what that means."

Kara looked bewildered. "The Council of Ladies." She suggested as if jarring his recalcitrant memory. Rion picked another bone clean and then flung it into the fire, stretching out across from her, leaning up on one elbow.

"Not a term I am familiar with. Are they all witches?"

Kara continued to eye him in disbelief. "The term witch, refers to a misguided attempt to explain and blame unnatural or misunderstood phenomenon on earth. Women, and sometimes men, were blamed for stupid things like illness, and natural disasters."

Rion picked his teeth, staring at the blue-tipped flames. "Hm... in your culture... you would be distrusted. You would be considered a witch!"

Kara kicked sand at him. Rion laughed and sat cross-legged, staring her down. "You are different, are you not? Women in your culture are not habitually trained as warriors. You insisted upon the training. I have ascertained your memories that even Galantyne did not initially want you to be trained."

Kara was shocked. "Stop accessing my memories!"

"You project them, the same as I do, and I don't ask you to stop looking at my recollections of Crevan, Jayce and Terryn."

"It isn't the same."

Rion tossed his toothpick into the fire and scooted around to the hammock where she was tied. He scooted close to her, and she stiffened as he ran a practiced hand from her neck to her side. "You are a witch."

"I believe you consider a witch to be one with supernatural powers. I have none, as you well know. If I did, I would surely turn you into a mounchick."

Rion laughed outright and clapped her on the shoulder as he rolled onto his back snuffling his nose and pretending to curl paws. "I am a mounchick!"

Kara watched him a full second before she couldn't help but burst out laughing. Delighted, Rion continued to snuffle on the ground, raising his eyes to hers mischievously. Kara backed away from him, but continued to watch him, her insides shaking in suppressed mirth. No one in her acquaintance had ever rolled on the floor simply to humor her.

"Seriously, Rion." She finally chided, and he sat up instantly, eyeing her in the firelight, not knowing if she realized it, but she had started calling him by his first name. "Adara, if not his mistress, and not his wife, is simply a defected Council Woman. In my culture, she would have been held in high esteem had she not misused her powers. They are sworn to only use their powers for good."

Rion grunted and turned away. "She is not good."

"Then she has lost her mind."

"I would agree with you there, na'shilean."

Kara swallowed forcefully and he heard the audible gulp and handed her the water flask. She took it and nodded at him. "In my culture, where the Council of Ladies originated, Council Women are not witches, they dispense law, and hold traditions safe. They alone can give kai, they alone can revoke it. There is a balance between the reigning monarch and the government, and the Council of Ladies. Balance is necessary."

Rion nodded, processing that statement. He leaned close to her. "Are you inside the balance, Princess?"

Kara closed her eyes, not because she couldn't answer that question easily-- she knew she was different-- and perhaps not included in that balance-- but because Rion's dark eyes staring so closely into hers caused a sense of heightened awareness she was unfamiliar with. Her heart rate picked up unexpectedly and the tightness in her chest extended to a tingling clear through her middle.

Rion watched her carefully. She had left her shields unguarded, and he felt the same hint of attraction she experienced, only he knew what it was. He was not a stranger to this feeling. There had been a few women, none he cared to dally with more than once or twice, but nevertheless a part of his history. She-- he sensed-- was innocent.

He cleared his throat, recalling vividly the other meaning of the words he sometimes called her... na'shilean-- little love. His eyes slid to hers.

She was staring at him.

Kara...

Don't look at me.

Kara, perhaps the balance is inside of you...

Don't look at me!

I can't help looking at you. You are beautiful.

Stop it.

He grunted again and then rose up on his knees to glare imperiously down at her. "It is time to sleep."

******

He always felt her dreams. He saw her daydreams about her family, the other searcher girl they'd caught, Jerrika seemed to share every daydream. He saw Galantyne, and considered the strange awe in which she held her brother, wondering if everyone reverenced him this way. She was as familiar with Galantyne as a true sister could be, yet she oft times stared at him with admiration.

He also saw another man, with dark looks and no facial hair, and a bow with those amazing sea arrows. He saw the trails she used in Sentinel and some of her experiences. He felt what it was like to meld. He began to understand her antipathy toward his kind and her reasons for looking for the Talisman.

At night she would wake him with her dreams. They sparked terror in his breast as he saw himself marvelously huge and covered in Salimantor armor coming toward her, his beaming goggles bright in the darkness. He was fantastic to behold from his point of view, but her terror was inescapable. At these times he would yank on her wrist leash to end the dream, and if that didn't work he would whisper soothingly that she had nothing to fear from him.

Yet.

Kara never realized the extent of his knowledge of her innermost feelings. She thought she had the upper hand most of the time, and he liked to see her acting superior. It would be rewarding to take her down again.

Another night he wondered why no one had come for him yet. He knew her people would not necessarily search for her, thinking her well into Auditorium by now. Except Galantyne. He had come for her before. Perhaps even now Galantyne was meeting with Quildor to negotiate her release. His heart thudded painfully at the complicity he harbored in that event. He recalled Galantyne in his lotica room, the quick and dangerous battle they'd had. He was a very worthy opponent.

Everything in Rion longed to fight him again. He sensed that Kara's hero worship of her own brother was not exactly misplaced. Galantyne was a risk taker, and he would risk everything to find his sister. Even war....

He shook himself out of that reverie and wondered fleetingly why Quildor had not sent one of his brothers. If he had he would have sensed them. But he did not.

He looked across at Kara who was cross-legged on the mat, her bangs brushing her cheekbones and hanging in her face. She had parted them down the middle and curled behind her ears, and he knew they bothered her. She was deeply involved in her meditations. He had taken her with him this night, schooling her step by step in Zalez, even as the youngsters of his people would be taught by the the elders. She wasn't completely able to follow where he went, her mind didn't have the capabilities yet, but there was enough empathy to get her into meditative trance, and then he pulled out while she was going over her day's routine. He got up sensing as he did every night, for intruders.

For a few days he had sensed a foreign male in the vicinity, on land, he would have to be Valdemarian, and he had Kara on his mind. He didn't know if this man was actually searching for her, or if he was just missing her from the depths of his desert or swamp camp. Rion wasn't ever one to take a chance, and the whole area surrounding them for a mile was booby-trapped.

He glanced in the twilight at her stiff neck in the brace he made her wear at night. Her neck seemed to have healed properly, and he made her work it extra hard until she cried out from the pain. He wanted her strong.

Strong enough to fight.

Him.

And anyone else.

********