Page 45 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

Navuh pushed off again.

To the far wall, then back, reaching the near wall with his lungs burning and his legs trailing behind him like seaweed. He rested longer this time, and Areana didn't try to stop him when he went for the third round.

By the fourth, he was tempted to stop halfway and float, but he powered through it and finished the round.

"Eight pool lengths," Areana said. "Yesterday it was six."

"Tomorrow it will be ten."

She cast him a mock glare but didn't argue. She knew better.

He climbed the steps with effort, his legs shaking. When Areana draped the robe around him, he was glad for the assistance.

"You did well today." She waited for him to tie the belt around his waist.

Back in the apartment, she made tea. He needed to rest to gather strength for the shower, so he sat in the armchair in his robe, with his legs stretched out in front of him, and waited for the trembling to run its course.

The wheelchair was still there, folded and stored behind the couch in case he needed it, but he had no intention of ever using it again.

Areana put the cup in front of him. "I have something to show you." She walked over to the coffee table and retrieved a folder.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Kalugal sent it. These are the plans for our new home."

"Did you look at them?"

She shook her head. "He texted me that he was sending them with a Guardian, so I knew they would be here by the time we returned from the pool, but I didn't have a chance to take a peek yet. We can look at them together."

Navuh took the folder and opened it.

Architectural drawings, three-dimensional but basic. A long, low house on a shelf of hillside, with a hill rising behind it on two sides. A second, smaller building near the only approach, with a window facing the house's front door. A fence line and a gate.

He turned the pages slowly, giving Areana time to see.

There was nothing clever about it. It was a box on a hill with one way in. It was almost insulting, how little there was.

"He is in a hurry," Navuh said. "That's why the design is so basic."

"He wants it finished in a month or two."

"He wants it done so he can stuff me in that box and forget about me."

Areana sat down and poured herself tea. "I like it."

"It is a cage with a sliver of garden."

"It is a house with a sky." She took a sip of the tea in that refined way of hers that he found incredibly sexy. "I have lived underground for far too long, Navuh. I want windows and a real view."

"Was it so terrible?" he asked. "I built you a palace. You could go up whenever you wished. You had a large outdoor garden, an ocean view, and an inner garden courtyard. You ruled the harem like a queen, and I never intervened."

"I know what I had."

"Then what was so terrible about it?"

She put down her cup. "Nothing was terrible, and I didn't suffer except when I was forced to give up my sons so they could be raised in the breeding enclosure by strangers, supposedly to keep them safe. I am not accusing you, but I would never go back there. That part of my life is over." She pulled the folder toward her. "This is the next part, and I'm excited about it."

He was quiet for a while.