Hotel, not interesting.
Especially not with all the snacky soap gone. And the house cleaning person, come and gone and no clue about Sklayne hovering at the ceiling and tumbling down to nip at the ends of her hair, a small defiance in the face of Trevarr’s disapproval.
::Should have taken me.::
Disgruntledness took satisfaction from his victory over the pillow. He’d eaten the mint, too, hovering around it just before returning to cat, absorbing it without disturbing the paper.
Let the small person of much power figure that one out.
Unless Trevarr saw it first. Trevarr would know. Trevarr would throw the paper away in a tiny crumpled ball and cast a scowl in Sklayne’s direction. It wouldn’t matter if Sklayne hovered in his unseeable self-form or not. Trevarr always knew where he was.
Bond partner.
Sklayne comforted himself with minty aftertaste and sprawled on the pillow in the sun, twitching, dreaming waking dreams. His forest and high meadows. His forest and meadows before Trevarr. His forest and meadows before Sklayne had grown too curious, gotten too close...
A cold tingle burned his cat bones from the inside out. He made a startled cat noise, flipping right-side-up in one smooth, sudden motion. Trevarrrr? He tasted of the air, using the small pink nose smudged with black at the edges. Treyyyy? But no, he was alone here. The energies were quiet in this place.
But not everywhere.
::Trevarrrr?::
Not so often, words over distance. Too hard, not worth it. More with the nudges and the impulses and the feelings. But this sensation...
Not right. Sklayne paced the length of the bed and back. He pulsed his claws in and out of the bedspread. He twitched his tail. ::Treyyy?::
Trevarr’s presence hovered as it always hovered — touchable, tangible, familiar — but not responsive. Busy.
Not good. Not when he’d used the wheedle-voice, the inner voice that sounded so much like this cat’s very purr. The voice that made Trevarr stop what he was doing and roll his eyes and refuse to admit that it tickled his thoughts.
Cold shot anew through Sklayne’s bones, squeezing out startled, protesting yowl. The scent of wood smoke drifted past his mind. It was his only warning before vice of crushing pain ow ow YEOW! It wrapped around him, compressing fur and skin and bones — snapping his bond connection wide open. Immensity of power, channeling through the small Garrie person and back again.
A gift from Kehar, given and unwittingly received, embraced and unknowingly used. It churned into a bastardized mix of different powers that flowed smoothly through the Garrie person’s control even as it scraped Trevarr from the inside out.
Sklayne snarled imprecations; he snarled warning to Trevarr. ::Half-blood,:: he said, and ::Rekherra!:: he said, and ::BEWARE!:: he said.
And Trevarr said nothing, but Trevarr knew, and Trevarr felt, and he fought against what was within — what was always within but always so deeply buried. Never allowed any freedom, for fear it could never be caged again. Never controlled.
Never tolerated by Ghehera.
Sklayne knew that fear. Lived beside it as bonded. Had seen it woken once on this world already, clean and pure and simple, in its earthy response to the Garrie person.
Controlled, that time. Not even unpleasant.
Never farking mind the fizz. Trevarr gone rekherra would be something for the Garrie person to kill. And then no going home for Sklayne. EVER.
The bastard-bred... they were the worst. The strongest. The hardest to control. Too torn between what they were and what they weren’t to live by the rules of any given being.
:Rekherra!:: he said, but by then the Garrie person’s power had stirred and scraped and howled, stripping away carefully guarded layers with pain and claws, ripping through them both with a shock that made this cat form writhe upon the bedspread.
Trevarr, hurt. Trevarr, struggling. Trevarr surrounded by beings who did not know, who could not know.
Sklayne snarled a rudeness at the weak cat form and the feeble damage its claws had done to the bedding. He knew. He should be there.
Bound familiar.
::Take,:: he told Trevarr, struggling atreyvo, and gave what he could. And knew he’d been heard when that gift was accepted, when Trevarr held ground against that which had been woken within.
So Sklayne gave, until the moment was done. Until he felt the faintest of touches, a mental scritch along the fur of his spine, a whisper of appreciation from a taciturn hunter.
And so he collapsed in on his corporeal aspect and let his essence retreat back to this hotel room.
Cat-form, so very broken.
Fark.
Sklayne set about fixing it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 9
Kehar: Still a Pretty Long Time Ago...
“Nevahn-hei.”
Trevarr always said the word as though it was an honorific. Nothing but respectful, his grandson turned fosterling. If he overtly lacked the very loose and natural affection of his adopted people, he nonetheless had the fiercest of respect and loyalty.
Nevahn had learned to read Trevarr’s silences, so he set his half-sharpened glyph chisel and whetstone on his work bench, wiping his brow in the sullen heat of midsummer. No breeze deigned to stir the air of this three-sided workshop, and the shade of the firs wasn’t nearly enough. He guessed, “Ardac mentioned I was looking for you.”
A dry glance confirmed it. Nevahn knew where that came from, too, and snorted resoundingly. “He hopes you’re in a bit of trouble, does he?”
They’d been friends once. Before Trevarr had intervened in the confrontation between Jahnjahn and the bullying Krevata child. Jahnjahn had never quite been the same, and Ardac hadn’t forgotten. Not the lingering cost of the episode, and not that Trevarr had been the one to earn Jahnjahn’s gratitude for that day.
Nor had the Krevata forgotten. As always, they lingered at the edges of acceptable encroachment, abiding by the letter of Ghehera’s strictures while breaking the spirit of them in every possible way — leaving subtle signs of their presence, jerking energies around in the rudest possible fashion, filling the nights with erotic dreams as they held their ceremonies far too close for comfort.
And they’d begun to covet. The Krevata had no skills for mining platinum and no physical inclination, but they were better than any being on Kehar when it came to coveting.
And getting.
Trevarr picked up a fine-pointed chisel and turned it in the light, assessing it before he chose a whetstone and went to work beside his foster father. If Nevahn had ever thought he’d ask “Am I in trouble?” he’d be a long time waiting.
But Nevahn expected nothing of the sort. “Sadly for Ardac, I want only to talk. It’s about time, even if the Krevata weren’t spilling their summer ceremonies all over these mountains.”
At that, Trevarr paused in his work — his eyes hooded, but a certain tension in his shoulders. He grown another hand span in the past year, and most of the villagers thought of him as nearly done with it — not truly knowing what to expect of a half-breed. Nevahn knew him to be far from finished, and far from as impervious as most thought him to be.
“You’ve felt it, then. I thought that might be so.” Nevahn was careful to continue his work, his movement relaxed. “Son, we’ve all felt it. Surely you’ve heard the talk.”
The lift of one shoulder. Not sullen. Just the way it was. The boy was listening, that much was sure.
Nevahn put a final buff on his current chisel and set the thing aside, leaving the remaining chisels to Trevarr while he tended his brushes, laying them flat in a soaking tray. A glyphmaster was only as good as his tools, no doubt about that. “I thought you might have questions,” he said. “Given your growth. Many a young man has seen to his pleasure by now.”
Trevarr lifted his head with a sharp motion, his eyes not brightening so much as exposed to the light of midday, just a little too stark against a sun-browned complexion. “I won’t ever,�
�� he said, and the words came too quickly to have been a new thought.
Nevahn jerked slightly in surprise. “Son —”
“No.” Trevarr looked away. It was as good as a scowl — the only way he knew to keep his troublesome gaze from pinning others whether he intended it or not. “The way everyone speaks of my father — that he stole my mother. That he beguiled her with his ways. I’ll not have anyone say that of me. I’ll not do that to anyone.”
Nevahn found himself speechless — a rare condition indeed. And he felt the rare flush of shame along his back and arms. Without thinking, he flicked his fingers to his workbench, grounding that subtle gather of energies. A faint haze of fog gathered at his feet.
Because they did say such things. All of them. Including Nevahn, who had loved his daughter Illekha very much indeed.
Far past time for this discussion, it seemed. Nevahn chose his words carefully, lest he tread on Trevarr’s carefully guarded privacy. “Do you not have urges?”
Trevarr flashed him a look that must have been involuntary — direct and sharp and telling. Then he flinched, looking down to where the unforgiving metal of the chisel had drawn blood.
Darker blood than any of the villagers would bleed.
Nevahn handed him a clean cloth, never mind that it had been meant for the brushes. “Then it won’t do, son. Such urges are perfectly natural. This is the time for your body to learn what it’s becoming.”
A poor choice of words. Trevarr clenched the rag around his finger more tightly than the digit ever deserved, his eyes flaring bright, his nostrils flaring with emotion... his jaw set in a way that offered a glimmer of its future hard lines. “No one knows what it’s becoming.” He spat the words as if he’d long held them and long hated them. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Nevahn stirred the brushes, buying time. Listening to the rustle of the woods that encroached so closely at the back of the workshop. For safety reasons, the glyphmaster worked and lived at the edge of their boundaries. In recent years, this location had come to seem a less precarious thing, Krevata or no — because Trevarr walked the night as much as he walked the day, pushing limits that Nevahn had never truly attempted to set.
“I know you,” Nevahn said finally. “I know what you mean to this village, whether they care to recognize it or not. I know that whatever you become, that much will not change. And I know,” he said, raising his voice for that emphasis, “that if you don’t find a way to explore this part of yourself just like the rest of us, that we’ll all be sorry. Klysar’s Blood, my son, no wonder you’ve been moody!”
That bought him another glare — a more conventional thing, a youth in his mid-teen years insulted.
“I understand your concern,” Nevahn said, pulling a single brush free to inspect the bristles, spreading them against his meaty palm. The scent of astringent solvent make his nose twitch. “I can see that you might want to go elsewhere, outside the village. But by the Blood, son, find yourself a willing partner — or two, or three. There are plenty who want the pleasure without the companionship, you may trust me on that. But there’s a thing about the kyrokha that you may not know... ”
Nevahn broke off, not sure how to say the words that would betray just how much he’d learned about the creature that had lured his daughter away — visiting her in the ethereal, touching more than her body. It was hard to think about, and equally hard to admit — only in part because it would reveal the very fact that he’d kept such things from Trevarr in the first place.
Trevarr waited, dark blood spotting through the cloth. It had been a bad cut then — worse than the boy had let on. But it didn’t matter. He’d heal as quickly as he ever did, which was much quicker than most. Nevahn drew a deep breath. This was, after all, the thing he’d meant to say in the first place. “Choose those you don’t find yourself caring for,” he said. “The ones that don’t spark your heart. Choose them because they’re lusty and strong and willing, and no harm will come of it.”
Trevarr sat silent, which in itself didn’t mean much. But the gaze he returned to Nevahn’s, the understanding there... the hurt and faint betrayal...
That meant he understood the things that Nevahn had hoped he wouldn’t.
Trevarr’s father hadn’t simply been a predator, stealing into the village from the high mountains above, wrapping his influence around a young woman night after night. He hadn’t simply joined with Illekha against her will, luring her away to a life of solitude.
He’d loved her.
Trevarr held that rare gaze long enough so Nevahn found his lungs burning for sweet, spicy mountain air — realized he’d forgotten to breathe, and forced himself to start again.
Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered. For something in his father’s heart broke just a little bit when Trevarr managed to say, “Never love, you mean.”
“Yes,” Nevahn said, his voice a reluctant whisper. “Never love.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 10
That Séance Room
Enjoin the spirits to remain calm, regardless of their plight.
— Rhonda Rose
Take a breath! ... Or whatever.
— Lisa McGarrity
“Listen up,” Garrie told the lingering ghosts, keeping her voice low — the moms would hear her, but would have to guess at the words. “This house was made for you — to keep you sane, to keep you going in happy circles. Hot damn, you’ve had it good for years, haven’t you? And now you’re panicked because things aren’t quite right. Well, grow up!”
Still bent, still trembling over the power she’d laced with her words, Trevarr made what might have been a twisted sound. Might have been surprise. Might have been amusement.
“Something’s wrong here, I get it. But I do this my way. And that means not scaring the Fisher-Price Little People, right? It also means we’re leaving, but we’re coming back. So take a breath!” Okay, that probably wasn’t politically correct. “Or whatever,” she added, not lamely at all.
If they’d been in the flesh, there’d have been a lot of toe-digging and throat clearing and looking anywhere but at her. As it was, they eased away — their presence dissipating, their energies finding outlets through nooks and crannies and even straight through the walls. “Ohh, no,” she said, and her voice suddenly sounded a little louder than anyone else’s. Oops.
Not that she hid what she did, generally speaking. But here and now... the explanations weren’t worth it.
She went to silent running. It took more concentration, sending silent thoughts out on energetic breezes. I need to hear that you’ll leave the tourists alone. All of them.
She should have realized that Trevarr would shudder at the energy sent out, that he’d slowly go down with that last straw — taking her with him, as it happened. She didn’t have to see in the dark to know he fought it; she felt it in every quivering muscle. Could hardly avoid knowing it, tangled with a bent leg, trapped beneath a bowed shoulder — sprawled there beside and with him.
“Sorry, sorry!” she whispered, but couldn’t stop. Not until she’d put an end to the ghostie hijinks. She rested a hand on his arm and turned back to the spirits, putting no quarter in her voice. Do we have an understanding?
She received nothing so direct in response. Just a wash of anxiety and wariness and concern. The translation was clear enough, after so many years of reckoning. Then will you help us?
It’s why I came.
They didn’t quite believe her. Their distress was genuine... their need, great.
She held firm. I need time to figure this out.
They didn’t quite believe that, either — that she could or would. Fine. I get that. You’ve needed help for a long time, and no one listened. But still, now that I’m here — you leave the people of this house alone.
Not that they had a choice, now that she was prepared for them. She had the means to dissipate them; she let them feel the pressure of it. They understood; they acquiesced. The ghostie version of a pink
ie swear.
She let them go.
They left swiftly and quietly. As Garrie took a deep breath — all leather and wood smoke at that — the lights flickered back on.
Being so close to Trevarr in the darkness was one thing. Being so close in the suddenly bright overhead chandelier was quite suddenly another. And yet she just sprawled, stunned, realizing anew the size of him. Not safe.
Hell, no.
And realizing, with the family cheering in the background and the “Mommy, I want to go,” clamoring in her ear, that even now, he kept his head turned away and he’d closed his eyes.
She used a low voice she now trusted he’d hear even if no one else did, reminding him. “I saw you.”
His eyes flashed open; they fastened on her. Cold silver, just a little wild around the edges. Not glowing at all. He might even have fooled her if she hadn’t still felt the tension in his limbs.
She’d give it to him. For now. Because here came Lucia, long legs crossing the room in a few quick strides, dark eyes full of worry. But not her voice, for Lucia knew the value of a public face as much or more than any of them. “Up with you, chicalet,” she said, reaching out a hand to haul Garrie off the floor — and out from beneath leather and limbs — as if she did so several days a week.
Behind her, the guide reached for the door through which they’d entered the room. Her short grey hair stood up every which way and her face flushed ruddy red; her glasses sat askew on her nose. But she rattled the unresponsive door knob with a determined confidence, ready to march them onward.
Ghosts didn’t always clean up after themselves when they left.
Garrie left her to discover on her own that they were still locked in — from the sound of it, the mechanism had fused. She turned to Trevarr, her hand outstretched just as Lucia’s had been. “Your turn.”
Lucia snorted, adjusting the little designer tote at her shoulder; Drew came up uneasily beside her. Trevarr just looked at her, patently eyeing her stature relative to his own.
Garrie still couldn’t read those metal-hard eyes and she couldn’t imagine anyone ever would. She raised her eyebrows at him in a silent yeah, or what? and he reached up to grasp her hand, relying on her far more than she knew he ever wanted to. She didn’t let on, either, just how much of his fluid rise actually came from all that time she spent in her condo’s workout room.
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