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Khiara looms large. I dart my eyes from one of them to the other, certain that this is about to come to blows and not wanting to be here for it. Even more not wanting to be the cause of it. Khiara grunts, grumbles, cocks his fist, but Dilacs doesn’t even look at him. And somehow that takes the wind out of Khiara’s sails.
He drops his arm to his side. Grunts, shakes his head, then grabs his glass and drains it. He picks up his chair, slams it onto its feet, then flops into it, silently glaring at me. Dilacs doesn’t look over but he nods.
“Continue. Please,” Dilacs says, nodding at me.
My mouth is dry but I nod, sip the burning liquid, and do as he asks.
“I know… I mean… the war between your people and the Cavern Zmaj has been awful. And they can be… a lot. But Rosalind, the human leader, my leader, she wants to stop the war.”
“Why?” Dilacs asks.
“Does it matter? It’s all a lie,” Khiara says, waving one hand around the air in a random gesture.
Dilacs ignores him, his eyes boring into mine.
“She says we’ll need all of us if any of us are going to survive,” I say.
“You trust her?” Dilacs asks.
“You mean to tell me that you’re going to buy into this?” Khiara says, sitting forward. “You and the so called gada of a resistance. Desperate for any ray of hope.”
“I do,” I answer. “If you could only meet her, you’d get it. She’s… amazing.”
Dilacs nods then he shifts in his chair and looks at his brother.
“And you just said the resistance believe the humans,” he says.
“Bah, dreamers. There is no hope,” Khiara says, staring at his brother with wild eyes that look like he can barely focus. He weaves in his seat almost falling out of it, barely catching himself on the table. “No… hope.”
His head nods and then falls with a bang onto the table. Khiara snores. Loud. Dilacs stares at him for a long moment and I wait with growing anxiousness. I can’t tell if he believes me or not. I’m not sure what is going to happen next. I’m not scared, per se, because I feel certain neither of them would actually hurt me, but still. I care deeply about them both and don’t want to hurt either one of them.
Dilacs finally turns to look at me and it’s as if his head moves in slow motion. I swear my heart must beat twenty times before his eyes meet mine. We stare at each other and I try to read his face. Before this I thought I knew him well enough to do it, but right now I’m not sure.
Finally he grunts, shakes his head, then sighs.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
He does one of those slow blinks that again seems to take forever to happen. It makes me even more anxious but when his eyes are on mine again he nods.
“Yes,” he says. “Okay.”
“Okay, you believe me? Okay you’re going to turn me over to the Maulavi? I don’t understand.”
“Okay, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt,” he says softly. His eyes dart to his brother then back. Khiara grumbles, snorts, then resumes snoring. “I want to trust you.”
“But?” I ask, feeling it hanging there unsaid.
He shakes his head and shifts to stare at his brother.
“It is not easy,” he says. “We have fallen so far away from trusting. Believing.” He closes his eyes and grunts, his hands spasming into tight fists. “Hoping.”
I reach across the table and lay my hands on top of his. His eyes snap open, dropping to stare at mine on his.
“I know,” I say. “Believe me. I wasn’t sent here to spy, though. I was sent to find a way to make peace.”
“Peace,” he snorts, eyes darting from my hands to mine and back. “Seems impossible.”
