Page 37 of Hunting the Warlord's Daughter

“My mother?”Wren exclaimed, her face so open with hope it twisted Aral’s gut. “You knew her, sister?”

Alarm ripped through Aral. So much for their plan to masquerade as homesteaders. Their cover had just been blown into so much space dust. The priestess recognized Wren.

He scanned the area for other threats. The road back to the ship, their sole escape route, now a gauntlet of interwoven shadows. The eerie praying hands. The back of his neck prickled. If they left now, they could make it out. “Wren,” he said. “Let’s go.”

His warning didn’t register. Wren was too focused on the priestess.

“We’d better leave, Aral,” Kaz said.

“Wren—comenow!” He snatched Wren’s arm and tugged.

She dug in her heels. “Unhand me, Aral.” Anger flared in her eyes and roughened her voice. She wrested free of him, glaring. The strange amber light had set her hair ablaze with fiery highlights. She was all at once breathtakingly beautiful… and a little scary.

She spun back to the priestess. One of the shadows sliced across her small body, a three-dimensional pointed finger. She yelped, staggering backward, her hand gripping her chest.

Aral swung her away from the priestess, his dozer coming up. Kaz had her weapon aimed and ready an instant behind him.

“No!” Wren wrenched his arm back by the sleeve. “Don’t.”

“Don’t!”Into his mind burst a memory, of taking his father’s shirt in his fists and trying to pull him away from a sobbing Nanjin.“Let her go. Father, please.”

“It’s only my pendant,” Wren whispered past clenched teeth. “It startled me. I’m fine. Put down your weapon. This is a sanctuary, for fate’s sake.”

He’d never deliberately attacked believers, but in that moment, the sister had been an enemy. The war-lust of defending Wren had overtaken, and if she hadn’t stopped him, he would have done something unspeakable. Disgust flickered inside.Be calm. Be methodical. Do not allow emotion to undermine your actions.That was his mantra, or it was supposed to be. What had happened to his infallible self-control? His grace under pressure?

Wren had happened.

He set his jaw and holstered his firearm. Wren aimed her glare at Kaz, who also lowered her dozer.

Wren kept a cautionary hand on Aral as she addressed the sister. “Tell me about my mother. I know so little about her.”

“We are not at liberty to say,” the curly-haired other priestess broke in.

“Please.” Wren’s plaintive tone ravaged his heart.

The sisters seemed to pass a silent signal between them. The blonde kept her eyes downcast. “Valla came here for a time, as many pilgrims do, on a journey of the soul. She struggled with the choices before her. It was a very difficult time.” She paused as if searching for the right words. “In the end, she chose love. She chose you, child.”

Wren’s fingers spasmed on Aral’s arm. “I always thought she must have abandoned me. I thought it was why no one ever wanted to talk about her.”

“She never would have abandoned you.”

Wren’s eyes glowed in the eerie light. For a moment, Aral thought she might weep. The sister’s stunning words had clearly turned Wren’s lifelong assumptions upside down. “How did Lady Valla end up here? Did she hope to join your order—the Hand of Sakkara?”

With a brush of her hand, the curly-haired sister stopped the other woman from saying more. Ignoring Wren’s obvious urgency to pepper them with more questions, she pointed down the road. “We have said all we can say. Go—go in peace.” She drew herself up, resembling a warrior more than a priestess. “While you still can.”

Well, there was no confusing that message. They’d just been shown the proverbial door. “Wren. Let’s go.”

Wren circled her hand over her heart and stepped backward as she bowed. “By the stars of Ara Ana, we will go.” She pivoted on her heel and led the way back to the ship. He strode quickly to match her pace. How did such a small woman walk so fast? “That almost ended very badly, Aral.”

He sensed the banked fury in her voice. “Indeed. Had they been hostiles, you’d be dead now.”

“But I’m not, and they weren’t.” Seething, she could barely speak to him, and certainly not civilly. She walked even faster, almost running.

He spread his hands, trying to make peace with her. “My actions may have upset you, but know this—I’ll defend you, no matter who it is.”

“Argh! Aral.” She snarled at him. “I didn’t stop you because I feared forherlife. I feared foryours.”

Dumbstruck, he blinked at her.

---