Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(59)

“I’m not an outsider. I’m a child of the Dominion and a child of the Uma. One doesn’t exclude the other.”

“I meant no offense.” Caution iced over her voice.

Kosandion offered her another smile. “I took none.”

They reached the pond where the stone path curved around the water. The pond took up a whole acre, a shallow, crystal-clear body of water with a large flat rock jutting out a few feet from its left shore. Little fish darted in the cool depths, and brilliant water lilies bloomed on the surface. Stone benches along the path offered places to rest. This was Sean’s favorite spot. When the inn had a lull of visitors, we came here to swim in the pond, sunbathe on the hot rock, and drink beer.

Kosandion and Ellenda continued down the path.

“Do you truly mean that?” Ellenda asked softly. “Are you a child of the Uma?”

Kosandion pulled his left sleeve up and raised his arm. A row of intricate white tattoos shot through with gold marked his dark skin.

Ellenda stopped and turned to face him, a resolute expression on her face. He pivoted toward her. They stood on the path, perfectly still, the same straight posture. In that moment, the two of them looked like they belonged to the same people.

Ellenda took a deep breath.

I braced for an attack.

“Tell me what troubles you, kalenti. You can tell me anything.”

“Anything?” she asked.

“Anything at all. This is our moment. My time and my attention are yours.”

Ellenda exhaled and shut her eyes.

If she moved a muscle in his direction, I would drop her right through the floor. I had expended a lot of magic, but it wouldn’t take much, and my reaction time was just fine.

The Uma woman opened her eyes. “Do not choose me.”

On the screen behind them, the Ocean Dining Hall went perfectly still. Nobody moved.

“What do you mean?” Kosandion asked.

“Do not choose me. I don’t want to be your wife.”

Oh wow. I did not expect that.

“My branch owes a debt to the Kyporo outsiders,” she said. “I came here to repay it.”

Duty over happiness. Of course.

“My presence was required. I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to stay in the Dominion. Don’t try to take my freedom, because I will defend it with my life. So please don’t choose me.”

A silence fell. Birds chirped in the trees, a fish broke the surface of the water and splashed, but the two people in front of me were perfectly still and silent.

On the screen, the faces of the Frowns delegation looked contorted, some with alarm, others with outrage. Their leader clenched his fists on the table.

A subtle change came over Kosandion. He seemed larger somehow, formidable, majestic, no longer a man but an embodiment of power.

“What is it you truly want, daughter of the Uma?” he asked.

Ellenda opened her mouth and then spoke, as if jumping off a cliff. “I want to go home to my planet and the man I love.”

“It is done,” the Sovereign said.

There was a resounding finality to his voice. Goosebumps ran down my arms.

“Innkeeper, take Ellenda to the portal. Once she passes through it, the Dominion will chart a ship to take her back to her homeworld. No citizen of the Dominion will ever trouble her or her branch again.”

On the screen one of the Frown delegates, a man wearing white and green, stood up and walked down the aisle to the door.

Where the hell was he going?

The man reached the table where the Holy Ecclesiarch sat with his entourage.

A transparent column shot out of the ground, sealing the holy man and his retinue inside. Wind jerked their hair as Sean flushed the inside of it with fresh air. At the same time a second column caught the man from the Frowns delegation, cutting him off from the dining hall. He jerked and collapsed.

I turned the volume back up, and the sound roared in, beings jumping to their feet.

Sean leaped over the tables and landed in the middle of the room, his gray robe flaring around him. The staff in his hand split, releasing a brilliant green spear head. His mouth opened, and he roared in the deep snarling voice of an alpha-strain werewolf. It was the same voice that had thundered over the battlefields of Nexus.

“Freeze!”

The three hundred creatures in the dining hall stopped as one.





18





When we last left the inn, Kosandion’s date with the Uma candidate, Ellenda, did not go to plan, and her delegation made a move against the Dominion’s Holy Ecclesiarch. Will Dina and Sean manage to eliminate the dangers gathering around the Sovereign? In this week’s episode of Sweep of the Heart…





The prisoner hung from the ceiling of the throne room, his body wrapped in the inn’s restraints. The Kyporo delegation stood under him, grim-faced and ready for some sort of action if only they could figure out what that action might be. Calling them Team Frowns in my head no longer seemed appropriate.

The rest of the delegates had been asked to return to their quarters. Only the Sovereign faction and the observers remained. The feed was going live to the entire Dominion. Kosandion was making a point: he had nothing to hide, from his people or from the rest of the galaxy.

He sat on the throne now, his expression harsh and cold, watching the massive screen behind the prisoner. On it, Tony led Ellenda to the portal. Her head was held high. They stopped before the round gateway. She turned, looked back at the camera, and gave us a brilliant smile.