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  She moved out of his embrace and searched his face. "You can see me, can't you?"

  He nodded. "I can see you."

  All at once, tears she hadn't known were threatening spilled down her cheeks in a torrent. Until the moment she saw herself reflected in his gaze, she hadn't known how afraid she was he would have become like all the others--blind to her because of the mark of silence.

  She looked over his shoulder, but he was alone. "They let you come to see me?"

  Again, he nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. She saw him look at the tattooed tear, and his hand came up to smooth it with one finger. She captured it with her own and held his palm against her cheek for a moment, grateful for the warmth of contact.

  "They didn't make you get the mark?" she asked.

  She couldn't interpret his expression. His face worked as he tried to speak, but seemed unable to put his thoughts into words. Finally, he sighed and ran his hand over his head in a familiar gesture.

  "I got another inking instead."

  Confused by his expression, Linna stepped back. "You did?"

  Del wore a high-collared, sleeveless tunic of some silky material, hanging loose over trousers of the same. Now he pulled off the tunic and turned his back to her. His broad shoulders flexed and rippled. The new markings, gleaming with oil, covered him from shoulder to shoulder in an intricate pattern of curls and lines intermingled with six-pointed stars and small sunbursts.

  It was lovely, the most delicately done and fascinating tattoo she'd ever seen, but it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  "What is it?"

  He turned back to face her, and she saw that the tattoo wound over his left shoulder and ended just above his heart. "It's the tal al naggid. The mark of leadership. It means I'm a melek."

  Her breath hissed out of her like she'd been punched in the gut. "I don't understand."

  "My father died."

  "Oh, Del, I'm so sorry." Linna watched his eyes flicker at her words of sympathy, but his expression didn't change much. Guilt slammed her. Did Del blame her?

  "The seven days of mourning are over. There was an empty seat in the Council. I took it."

  Linna didn't know what to say. "They made you take it?"

  His smile was hard and more than a little scary. "You know how much interest my people have in allowing choice. I was given a choice. Take the seat or take the tal al parar."

  Her breath had hissed out before; now the bottom fell out of her stomach. "And you chose to become the Amanrabah."

  "No. Vardek has that spot. He took my father's place. I took his."

  "So you're working together? Side by side?" She began to pace the cell again, careful to keep to the wall so she didn't have to come close to him. "Can you trust him?"

  "He's my brother."

  She shot him a hard look. "The same one who tried to crash-land you in the jungle. The one who challenged you to a fight and was going to cut you into ribbons to prove his superiority."

  Del's face was implacable. "It's the way things are done here."

  "Well, the way you do things here sucks," Linna said. "Del, is this what you want?"

  His eyes flickered again, and again she couldn't read what was in them. "I told you, they gave me a choice. I made it."

  Linna touched the teardrop permanently marked on her face. "So what does this mean for us?"

  He broke his gaze from hers. "I was able to use my influence on the melekim to arrange for your passage Offworld. I'm sending you on the next flight to Glaroit. It's a planet similar in climate to Earth. They speak Universal. You'll have no problem."

  "Sending?" The word gasped out of her in a squeak she hated. "You're sending me away?"

  His jaw clenched. He still wouldn't meet her eyes. "You can't stay here. You can't work. You can't do anything."

  "And you can't do anything about it either." Linna crossed her arms. All at once she felt like icicles were stabbing her all over.

  He still refused to meet her gaze. "I can't. It's better this way."

  "Del, if I go away...if you send me away, you'll have to spend the rest of your life alone."

  "I know that." He made as though to run his hand over his head again, but arrested the movement. Everything about him got tense and still. Rigid.

  She saw the warrior in him again, and knew she had lost this battle. Just like in the trial, she was given no chance for defense, and just like there, she had none to give. She had lost him, and her heart broke inside her with a pain so fierce and sharp it made her gasp and put a hand to her chest.

  She fought the pain, tried to force it away. She couldn't. It seated inside her like a serrated blade sawing her in two. "Del, look at me."

  At first he wouldn't, but then he did and she was almost sorry she'd asked. In his eyes was something she had never seen before in all the time she'd known him. Nothing.

  She broke the wall of ice surrounding her and stepped forward. She took his wrist and put it next to hers so the inkings aligned. She touched the pattern, each part a half until pressed together to be complete.

  "Apart, these are only part of the design." She had to swallow heavily to force out the words. "Only together is the pattern whole. Just like you and me, Del. Apart, we're only half of the design."

  He pulled his arm away from her, gently but firmly, and it hurt more than if he'd yanked it away. "Don't do this."

  "Do what?" She couldn't stop the cry tearing from her throat. "Telling you the truth of how I feel?" She held up her arm. "This means something to me, Del. It's just as binding to me as any genetic mutation could be. Maybe more, since I chose you. Isn't that what's important to you? The choice?"

  "You had the choice," Del said.

  What he didn't say, but what hung in the air between them anyway, was, "I didn't."

  Linna's body went stiff, her jaw set, her eyes narrowed. "No, you didn't. Lunavoss and the lovevine chose for you. Maybe I chose for you...I don't know. But I do know I love you, and I have probably since the first time you offered to drive me home. You can't tell me there's nothing between us except chance and a maliciously given aphrodisiac."

  Through it all, he still said nothing, face stoic, arms at his sides. There was no hint in his face of the Del she'd known, the man who drove her home when her feet hurt too much to walk. The man whose grin could weaken her knees. The man who had trembled the first time they made love.

  Now all she saw was Delek Tennvic, the warrior.

  "You have some choices to make, Delek." It was the first time she'd ever used his real, full name. "And the seat on the Melekim Gadol is only one of them."

  "I don't have any choices to make," came his reply. His voice crushed her heart like a stone dropped on it.

  "Because you've already made them?"

  He didn't answer her. Linna watched him, looking for any flicker of expression, of emotion. She lost herself in the depths of his dark eyes, but where once that would have made her feel safe and cocooned, now she only felt bereft.

  "When do I leave?" she asked.

  "Right now," Del answered. "The sooner the better."

  She nodded and pushed past him to stand at the door, her back to him. "Fine. Let's go."

  There was one last moment when she thought he'd reconsider. When at least he'd kiss her one last time. She turned, desperate to see his face one last time, but Del was looking past her as though she weren't there.

  To him, she was already gone.

  All Del really wanted was to have something cold to drink, something warm to eat, and a hot bath to soak in. Instead, he got a lecture about coming to the dinner table with the sweat and dust of his workout still covering him.

  "Del's not interested, Ima." Vardek tore a chunk off his loaf of bread and stuffed it in his mouth, then washed it down with a swig of wine.

  Garzina turned to scowl at Del. "Of course he is. Delek, why don't you go get cleaned up and then you can join me and Vardek in the garden for dessert."

  Del looked down at his plat