He nodded. “Oh, yes. I suppose. But now... Now it’s all on my shoulders. There’s no escaping that.”

“It always was, my Aleran,” Kitai said. “You were just too stupid to realize it.”

Tavi snorted out a laugh and smiled at her.

Kitai nodded in satisfaction. “Come. You need to get back to your wagon and rest. Varg has things well in hand.”

“I should stay,” Tavi said. “Watch. Who knows, there might be something here, some clue as to their weakness.”

Kitai looked at him with what looked like enormous patience that was nonetheless clearly being tried. “Aleran,” she said between her teeth, “you should rest. In your wagon. Your enclosed, covered wagon. While nearly everyone else is busy with the battle.”

Tavi blinked at her owlishly, then his eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. A sudden smile lifted his mouth. “Oh.”

And Kitai was suddenly pressed against him. There was a limited amount of sensuality available, given all the steel that was between them, but her kiss was so searing that Tavi felt in danger of having the armor melt from his back. She drew back from him, green eyes bright behind heavy lids. “You were smart today. You were strong. It suits you.” Her eyes smoldered brighter. “I like the way it looks on you.”

They kissed again, slow and heated. Then he smiled, and said, his lips brushing hers, “Race you there.”

Kitai’s eyes danced. Then she elbowed him aside, sending him into a brief, tumbling spin as she kicked out her own windstream behind her and dived for the camp.

Tavi laughed and sent himself rushing after her.

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 34

Isana had all but fallen asleep when she was awakened by a trilling vord cry she had never heard before. The ululating wail rose and fell so swiftly that it almost seemed a chattering sound. Odder still, it rang through the quiet green light of the hive with ear-piercing intensity.

Isana sat on the floor at Araris’s feet, leaning back against the cushionlike warmth of the croach. Both the wall and the floor sank gently beneath her as she sat reclined, essentially forming a couch under her. In point of fact, it was actually quite comfortable as long as one did not dwell upon the fact that it might at any time engulf and dissolve one’s flesh.

Isana opened her eyes only enough to be able to see, and remained silent and still.

The Queen came out of her little sunken bower-alcove in a darting motion that reminded Isana of a spider, rushing out of its funnel-shaped web to seize helpless prey. She crouched at the side of a shallow pool of water—or what Isana assumed was water—on the opposite side of the hive. Her rigid-looking lips peeled back from black chitin teeth, and she let out a furious hissing sound, staring down at the pool.