The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

Tea with Dit'teh

Could he tell her? Should he?

After a moment's hesitation, he realised he didn't really have any other choice. "She's not my wife," he said simply. "She's my father's wife." Liran left it at that. He couldn't get into the details here in the middle of the path.

"Ayah," she whispered, nodding and then looking down in thought. With her long black hair hanging over her face, she'd become a shadow. For a split second, she was so still and blended so well into the background, that Liran thought she was gone. Then suddenly, she looked up, "So, you finally did it—you killed the bastard?"

Liran gulped, unsure of what to say. He nodded silently, unable to speak. She knew. She knew because she knew his father. Had probably known his father intimately, for Weywey was the place his father travelled to once, or if his sister, mother and him were lucky, sometimes twice a year to sell the precious stones he'd collected all year long.

Dit'teh spit on the ground. "Good," she said. "Very good." And then she pulled on his shirt and said, "Come, my love."

Where?" he whispered, thinking that they were heading to her tent, and about how he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of her. He recalled how she'd leaned in with concern, and called him, "habibi" — my love — and he felt the urgency of a few moments ago flare up in his belly again at the thought of being alone with her.

But she had other plans. "We'll go for tea, of course" she said. "Come," and she pulled him behind her.

"Wait, wait—we should go somewhere... private," Liran protested. "I..." he faltered.

She cocked her head at him, confused. "There's no place more private in this camp than a crowded tea house."

That was true. It was the best place to talk since the tents were notoriously unsafe to have any type of private conversation in. The conversations in a tea house all blended into one dim roar.

But Liran didn't want to give up his tryst so easily. "Well, if people see us together they might think... I mean, I'm supposed to appear as if I'm married to her."

Dit'teh laughed, exposing her neck, her beautiful, white neck to the sky. When she had finished her throaty cackle, she said, "It will only be awkward if you make it awkward, Liran. Otherwise, you would be a man like any other man here—loyal only to his desires and enjoying the company of a woman. No different, unless you act differently."

Liran nodded. Yes, it was true. If he really was married, then that would not stop him from visiting a paid woman—if he was that kind of man. Would he be that kind of man? He didn't want to think so, but he thought it was probably so. "Yallah," he nodded at last, and they walked to the tea house—his personal fantasy crushed. It's probably for the best, he told himself.

As they reentered the tea house, a few more old acquaintances came to give their greetings, and Samir, the owner, made a big deal welcoming them with a grin on his face that suggested he knew exactly what they were doing here.

Liran chose a table without anyone sitting nearby and Dit'teh reclined daintily against the pillows on the ground. Her black cloak opened, revealing the thin, red robe underneath, and the sparkling outfit she wore underneath that. Liran sat beside her against the pillows, leaning into her from the other direction. They formed a v-shape, with the table between their outstretched legs.

"So, tell me, habibi, what's happening—what's wrong?" she touched Liran's wrist as she spoke.

Liran gulped, not sure what to say, and distracted by her touch. Could he tell her half the truth? He shouldn't tell her everything—only what she needed to know in order to help them. But he couldn't think straight. He could see her cleavage beneath the red satiny robe, and could think of nothing else.