Page 59 of Dark Princess: Shadows

"It was," Morelle admitted.

His mind was reeling. All those hours he'd spent talking to her, telling stories, sharing his thoughts, she'd heard everything. Every confession, every musing, she'd been present for all of it.

"But I knew I would get free," she said quietly. "I was trying so hard to break to the surface. It was exhausting, but I kept trying."

"You are so brave." He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles.

When her breath hitched, he let go of her hand. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken the liberty."

"No, it's fine. I've already given you permission to kiss my hand, remember?"

Relief washed over him, and he clasped her hand again, holding it against his chest. "How much do you remember?" he asked. "I mean, from before you gave me permission to kiss your hand."

Her eyes bored into his with an intensity that made his heart skip. "Everything, I suspect. Your voice was my anchor when I was lost in the darkness. Your stories sparked my curiosity and energized me. They gave me a reason to wake up so I could ask you all the questions I had." She looked at the teardrop hanging from his neck. "But it is not your voice I heard, though." She sounded disappointed. "It was the voice of this device."

"It provides a pretty accurate rendition," he quickly said. "Or so I am told."

Her lips lifted in a smile. "Good. I kept thinking that your voice sounded velvety, and it was disappointing to believe that I had been infatuated with a machine voice."

Infatuated?

Perhaps she meant something else, and that was how his earpieces translated it from Kra-ell?

Not sure what to do, Brandon turned off the device and said the only thing he knew how to say in Kra-ell: "Good day, Morelle." He activated the device and added, "Now you know how I really sound."

Her smile was beautiful and heartwarming. "Your voice sounded almost the same through the device, but your real voice is nicer. Is that all you know how to say in my language?"

He nodded. "I haven't lived in the village long, so I wasn't here to learn Kra-ell from those who joined our community recently."

When she just looked at him with those big eyes of hers, he realized that she had no clue what he was talking about. "What did Annani and Ell-rom tell you so far?"

"Annani told Ell-rom and me about our father. Ahn was a great leader who wanted to create a new way of life for the exiled gods and the humans who looked up to them. He wanted everyone to be treated with dignity and justice. Annani didn't tell me what happened to him, though. Could you?"

He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. "I don't think I should. I'd rather leave it to the Clan Mother. I have a feeling that she wants to be the one to tell you of his fate and how it came about. It's a deeply personal story. What else did she tell you?"

"She told me about her children being fathered by humans. Our father was a progressive thinker, and he allowed the gods to take human lovers. That was how the immortals came to be. She did not tell me why she chose humans to father her children, though. It was also one of the things she was saving for another time. Do you know why?"

Brandon nodded. "Of course I do, but this tale also belongs to Annani. I'm sorry that I can't be more forthcoming, but she is our Clan Mother, the head of our clan. I cannot and will not go against her wishes." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it softly, reverently. "Not even for a beautiful princess with the most amazing eyes."

39

MORELLE

Bran-don had called her beautiful, and he thought that her eyes were amazing. After growing up fearing that anyone would see the color of her eyes and realize that she was an abomination, hearing that tugged at Morelle's heart.

The compliments smoothed out the edge of her disappointment over Bran-don's deflection of her questions, especially the one about her father's fate. Very few things could kill a god, and she needed to know what had happened to Ahn. Still, Morelle accepted that Brandon's reluctance to share the information was born of respect for Annani's wishes and not his desire to keep her in the dark.

More questions burned in her chest, though, demanding attention. Chief among them was the mystery of Bran-don himself. Or rather Brandon, which was how the medics said his name. The pronunciation sounded less Kra-ell, but then there was no reason for him to have a Kra-ell name.

She wanted to ask him about the Kra-ell living among the gods, or rather the immortals who were the majority of this village's residents. Annani had explained that the gods had been too fewto survive after contact was lost with Anumati, which was the main reason for Ahn's approval of gods having children with humans.

It had been a shocking revelation to learn that Brandon, Bridget, and Gertrude were not gods but hybrids like her and Ell-rom, half god and half human, or rather mostly human because some of them were the result of many generations of breeding with humans.

Annani had told her that she had birthed five children who had all been fathered by different human males, but she had only mentioned four by name, and Morelle had not wanted to ask what had happened to the fifth. She had a feeling it was nothing good, and she didn't want to make Annani sad. Her sister seemed even more emotional than Ell-rom, and that was an achievement since their brother used to shed tears over the head priestess's more moving sermons.

"What are you smiling about?" Brandon asked.

"Your compliment." She lifted her hand to her head and smoothed it over the soft fuzz. "I don't feel beautiful without my hair. I used to have long, wavy hair, not straight like the Kra-ell, and not black either. It was a rich brown color. The head priestess used to grimace while helping me braid it when I was little, and she often suggested chopping it off. I refused, of course."