Page 4 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

"Is there a tavern in this place?" Raffy asked.

"There is. It is called the Hobbit Bar. You will like it there. There is music, drink, and a lady who tells fake fortunes to entertain the customers. I hear that everyone loves her act, even though they know it is not real."

"Do you like the tavern?" Khiann asked.

"I have never been there."

He tilted his head. "Why not?"

"There are things I cannot do as the Clan Mother," she said.

He frowned, seemingly unable to grasp the contradiction.

"I will explain it later over tea. It is a longer answer than a cart ride allows."

He nodded.

"Are you ready to go, my love?" she asked.

"Yes." He looked at his friends. "You have the phones. You know how to call me if you need me. Just find the circle with my picture."

Michael chuckled. "No offense, Khiann, but the nurses are more than capable of taking care of us. Enjoy your reunion with Princess Annani."

Ogidu lifted Khiann from the chair as though he weighed nothing, settled him into the back seat of the cart, and arranged his legs without comment. He then folded the motorized chair into the bed behind the rocking chair, came around, and offered Annani his hand.

"Clan Mother."

"Thank you, Ogidu." She let him help her into the seat beside Khiann.

Julian swung in up front next to the Odu, and the cart pulled away from the clinic.

Khiann's eyes followed the shrub-lined paths curving between the houses, the little islands of trees, the flowerbeds, the front doors, the front porches, and everything else in between.

"What are those low gray boxes between the houses?" he asked.

"Incinerators," Julian said over his shoulder. "An incinerator is a container that burns trash so it doesn't accumulate. It saves us the trouble of clearing it from the village, and it burns clean. We took the idea from cruise ships. They handle trash that way."

Khiann nodded and did not ask why a village would dispose of its trash like a ship at sea, which was fortunate, because the answer would lead to many other questions that she was not yet ready to address.

By now, he knew a few basic facts. He knew he was a god, that she was a goddess, and that the men who had guarded him and the healers who had tended him were immortals. But he did not remember the world of gods and immortals that came before. He did not know that the age of the gods had ended and that those who had survived the cataclysm had to live in hiding.

She would tell him everything when he was strong enough to hear that the world he had left behind before the stasis was gone, along with nearly everyone he had loved and cared for. But not now, on the morning of his first day home.

The cart hummed across a low bridge, and the houses on the far side stood farther apart and were larger, though not taller than those in the rest of the village because of the restrictions imposed by the need to camouflage its existence.

She pointed at her house as the cart slowed, then at the houses on either side. "That one is Kian's, his mate Syssi's, and little Allegra's. That one is Alena's, with Orion and their baby. Amanda's is a few doors up." She smiled. "Sari returned home a week ago. Do you remember Sari?"

His short-term memory had improved, but from time to time he still forgot things that he had just learned.

"I remember. Chestnut hair like mine." He lifted his hand to the fuzz covering his scalp. "Or rather, the hair I will have once it grows back." He looked at the houses she had pointed out. "Do your children come to visit you often?"

She heard the question hiding beneath the one he had asked.

"Do not worry. You will not be overrun," she said. "No one will come to our home without you knowing about it and approving it."

He swallowed. "I do not want to keep you from your family."

Annani took his hand. His fingers were stronger than they had been three weeks ago and weaker than they would be three weeks from now.