He took her hands, his eyes shadowed. “The Dark wants us here. I don’t like that we’ve accommodated it.”
She went cold—hands, lips, gut. “The Marshalls and Alexa and Marian asked us to come.”
“And we’re here. We can only hope we won’t leave our daughter an orphan.”
There was nothing she could say to that. The silence stretched, for the first time since they’d bonded, uncomfortable.
“If you insist that I come with you, I’ll forsake my duty.”
27
He dropped her hands, lifted a tent flap for a moment to watch the bustle of the camp. More than his face was inscrutable. She could barely hear his Song through the rush of her own blood.
“That’s your main fault, Calli. You want to please everyone.”
It was like a slap, she took a step back, couldn’t figure out what to say, settled on what might cause the deepest hurt but would be the deepest truth. “Do you regret bonding with me?”
Again his gaze met hers, hooded. “No.”
She wondered if that was because he’d received what he’d wanted all his life.
“Do you want me at our estate or not?”
“I always want you.”
And that might annoy him. But the Pairbond between them could not be broken. He could withdraw, she could step back in pain, but they were linked together.
He made a rough sound. “I see Marian and Jaquar are here. I wonder if they will take the field.”
“Jaquar has fought before.”
“But not the Exotique Circlet.”
“She battled the Dark in its nest.” Calli frowned. “And she fought when she came back—” Calli realized the points he was making.
“She completed her task and she returned after the Snap. You haven’t completed your task, whatever it might be, and this present endeavor may lead to our deaths before that is done. Will you stay on Earth when your Snap comes?”
A cry ripped from her. She stumbled toward him, put her arms around him, but he didn’t return her embrace. Still his heart beat faster, his Song enveloped her now she was against him.
“I am Pairbonded to you and bloodbonded to our daughter. I won’t return to Earth.” Any love she’d ever found was here.
His hand brushed her hair, just once. “You must know your priorities, Calli.”
“You. You and Diaminta.”
“So you say, but you don’t fly with me home today,” he said.
She hesitated.
His face hardened.
“No, I’m not flying home. Perhaps you’re right, I want to please people. I want people’s trust.” She wanted to be loved.
Because she needed to pace and carry on, she kept very still. She put her fist on her heart. “I feel that I must be here now, though I want to be with you more than I can say.”
There was one thing she could do. “Diaminta must be fully protected. I’d like to accept some new Chevaliers into our service, set them on rotation, too, here with u—me, and at home.”
He frowned. “Good idea.” Then he surveyed the field of tents one more time. “Four more would be best, and that will delay construction of the indoor arena until spring.”
Calli nodded. The indoor arena was her main dream as a trainer, but it was also the most costly outbuilding.
Without looking at her, he asked, “Will you fly as Shield to someone else during the times I am gone and battle is engaged?”
Shock flooded her and she knew he had the answer to his question through their link before she managed to answer. “No. Never.” I’m a lover, not a fighter.
He nodded. “What will you do?” His gaze had focused on the large training ring going up near their tent.
She cleared her voice. “In my Power lessons I have been crafting spellsongs to kill dreeths in battle, especially the little ones.”
A pulse of surprise came from him to her and he looked at her again, this time his face less expressionless, interest gleaming in his eyes. “Yes?”
“Yes.” She licked her lips. “It’s more Shield Power than fighting.”
Did his gaze soften a little? Was there pride in it? She hoped so. “Dreeths have focused on us the last three battles. And we’ve killed all three.” His eyebrows came down. “In different ways.”
“I know. I don’t get caught up in the fighting—lust—as you do. I’ve been experimenting.” Anything to keep deep panic from freezing her. “If…when…you must go and I must stay, I will train others.”
“Marrec!” The shout came from Koz. He peeked inside the tent. “I have the man here,” Koz elbowed Faucon, “who will answer some estate management questions for us.”
Marrec’s attention immediately veered from her, fastened on the men outside, on his priority of tending their estate. Calli couldn’t fault him for it.
“I’ll be right there,” he said, then whispered, “I’ll see you later.”
He was gone before she could reply.
An hour and a half later, she stood in a landing area and watched her husband fly away.
“Hey, pretty lady.” The words were Lladranan but lilted in an English accent. She turned to see Koz.
“Hey, Koz.”
He jerked his head toward the main camp. “Wanna beer?”
Sensing nothing but sympathetic companionship coming from him, she smiled and kept her mouth from trembling, sniffed back tears. “Sounds great.” She walked with him along an angle to his pavilion, realizing it was made of the best materials and had several rooms, was actually larger than her and Marrec’s tent.
A man sat on a stool outside the pavilion with a whetstone, sharpening a sword. He had a number of weapons beside him, including a long fancy dagger that seemed to glow. She blinked, tilted her head to try and hear what sort of Song emanated from it. Not Lladranan.
“Medieval Damascene,” he said. “I—uh—brought it with me. Marian didn’t know.” A flow of embarrassment came from Koz. Now that she’d spent more than a few minutes alone in his company, she realized she could sense his emotions easier than any true Lladranan’s.
Even Calli had heard of Damascus steel. “Wow,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m the envy of all.” His smile flashed as they entered his pavilion. “I was lucky enough to bring plenty of jewels and some gold with me from Earth. I’ve got a nice rich estate now.” He nodded to the man outside. “But only one Chevalier to fly under my banner.”
“Your Maserati banner,” she said.
He grinned. “Guilty.” A hint of wistfulness shadowed his eyes. “I could never drive on Earth.”
He’d had multiple sclerosis there, she knew, when he was Andrew. Here he had a healthy body. “Volarans are better than cars any day.”
Laughing, he said, “You got that right.” Then he went to a chest and hummed a couple of bars of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” to release a lock, she realized. He held up a bottle of beer and she gasped, was pulled to the small chest.
“My last one.”
“Don’t waste—”
But she was too late, he’d snapped off the top. He offered the bottle to her. Just the scent of it took her back to dusty rodeo days. Man. She couldn’t refuse. She should. Couldn’t. Tipping the bottle, she let cool beer trickle into her mouth, coat her tongue. Oh, yeah! The taste was all Earth, and for that she closed her suddenly damp eyes and savored. But she only took a swallow, then handed the bottle back to him.
He was still grinning.
“I like the ale better, here, too,” she said.
He wiped the top of the bottle on his shirt, and guzzled, smacked his lips, then shrugged. “I do, too.”
They laughed together. Gesturing with the bottle, he pointed to fat pillows made of plush rugs on the floor. “Nice,” she said.
“I remember my Arabian Nights.” He struck a pose. “I think I’ve already started a trend. Faucon was in here, took one look and left to commission some.”
Calli sighed and sank onto one of the pillows. “Rea
lly nice.”
“Thanks.” He sat, too, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “I’ve got it lucky.”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Once more he smiled, eyes crinkling. “Maybe not at first, but now, yeah.” He angled the bottle to her, then toward the encampment outside the door. “I wasn’t really Summoned, so I don’t have to worry about fulfilling any quest.”
The taste in her mouth turned bitter. She stood.
He did, too. “Don’t let all this stuff get you down, Calli. You’re doing great.”
She forced a smile. She didn’t think so.
“Really.” He turned around and swiped a water bladder. “Here. I set up a little brewery on my estate. Finest ale you’ll find on Lladrana.”
“Different people have different tastes.”
He cocked his head. “Very true. But by any standard, you, Calli Torcher Gardpont, have made the grade.”
Her smile felt strained. She didn’t think so. Her husband had left her, her daughter avoided her. All she’d wanted was love, and that still escaped her. “Thanks for the ale.”
With an inclination of his head, Koz opened the pavilion’s flap so she could leave. “You’re very welcome.”
As she walked back to her own three-room tent, she kept her smile in place and returned greetings, both human and volaran. Still, emptiness was a big hole in her chest. Their squires weren’t near her tent, though other guards were and she nodded to them and went inside to an equally empty place.
What the hell, she uncapped the bota and swigged. The ale was perfect.
Marrec would have thought so, too. But he wasn’t there to share the drink or conversation, stories of the day. Or love.
As Marrec flew toward home, he noticed he was…lonely. He kept peering through the Distance Magic bubble, looking for Calli. This was the first time they’d be apart for any appreciable time. They’d just developed their partnership…which seemed a little shaky right now. Because they disagreed.
He was right. He didn’t like leaving Diaminta more than a day and a night alone without her parents, and those damn nobles were keeping Calli, at least, tied down with their demands. He wasn’t used to being high status and he had little tolerance for their interminable meetings. If he had to fly to battle, they could direct him as they always had. He didn’t want to learn strategy.
He wanted to learn ranching. To make sure he was equal with Calli in that. She’d had a ranch on Exotique Terre, but she wouldn’t know Lladranan methods. He wanted to learn farming, how to ensure their estate produced enough to feed them and the people who lived on it. And it was best to do this before winter. But Calli’s sad Song…he shook his head. Someone had to take care of their child. He had to prepare for the future.
Now that he was sure he had a future. He was doing this for Calli, too. But Dark Lance did not speak to him all the way home, kept his equine thoughts distant—except for one time when the volaran wondered what was happening at the camp.
When Marrec landed and strode up to the door of his home, and his daughter held out her arms in welcome and said, “Pa. Pa. Pa,” he knew he’d made the only choice he could have. Even though her little face wrinkled and she looked around, searching for Calli. Who wasn’t with him.
That afternoon the alarms rang. Calli knew these bells now. A large retrousse rising in an area where they’d fought more than a half-dozen times over the last few weeks. She ran for her tent. Her squire and maid blocked the opening, arms crossed.
Her squire lifted an eyebrow. “You aren’t thinking of fighting, are you? Of being Shield to someone other than Marrec?”
It all came rushing back and hurt, hurt, hurt. Marrec wasn’t just somewhere else in the camp. He was gone.
She pushed her voice past her clogged throat. “No.”
Shouts came as volarans soared, flying to battle.
“No,” she repeated. She turned away from the tent. “Some new volarans flew in last night from Volaran Valley. I’ll go work with them, teach them the basics of partnering, determine what sort of person each would fit well with.”
She reached the large corral that was set aside for wild volarans—they always knew to land here rather than into other areas where the partnered volarans had formed their own herd. She blinked as she saw Lord Veenlit and his Chevalier, Raoul Lebeau, leaning on the fence. Veenlit pointed to a pretty buckskin mare.
“I thought you’d be fighting,” she said.
“Not our rotation.” Veenlit smiled.
He lied. The fact was that he didn’t intend to fight, seemed to think that renting space to the Marshalls and Chevaliers was his contribution to the effort to free Lladrana from the Dark. For a northern lord, he was offhand about protecting his lands, but this portion was miles away from his manor in a rich, secure mountain valley.
After she’d walked a few yards away from them along the fence, the volarans came over to her, pushing each other to greet her.
Hello, Volaran Exotique, the buckskin said.
Hello, Calli! said a bay stallion.
Hello, whispered the third, a black, smaller than the other two, ducking her head, then bringing it up to look at her with large, dark eyes. This one was a sweetheart, too gentle to fly to battle.
Salutations, winged ones, she said.
They liked that, and she took turns palming their lips, stroking their faces and necks. To Calli’s disgust, the two men sauntered up to her.
“You have a way with volarans,” Veenlit said, reaching out to stroke the buckskin’s nose. She backed away.
Calli lifted her eyebrows. “Probably why I’m called the Volaran Exotique.”
A spark of annoyance showed in his eyes before he suppressed it and smiled—too widely. “I could use a couple of fresh volarans.”
She played ignorant. “I thought if you wanted to increase your volaran herd all you had to do was Sing them from the wild.” Like any volaran would come to his call.
He shrugged heavy shoulders. “Hadn’t thought much about it until you all came camping. One of these…”
“These?” She widened her eyes as if in surprise. “But these have come to be trained as war volarans.” Then she smiled warmly. “Of course, I’ll work with you and them in the fighting patterns.” Now she lifted and dropped a shoulder. “I’m not on rotation to fight. We can begin immediately.” With a sweeping glance up and down them, she said, “I bet I could have you two in the thick of battle and slaughtering horrors within a week.”
They’d backed away from the corral. She followed. “So, I’ve never asked, do either of you speak telepathically to your volarans?” She hadn’t made time to visit with the local volarans, something she noted she’d have to do.
They both stared at her blankly. “What are you talking about?”
Letting surprise creep into her voice, Calli said, “We’ve found that about ten percent of the Marshalls and Chevaliers can mind-speak with volarans. We call their language Equine.”
Veenlit grunted. “Thought that was only crazy black-and-white Power, like that Bastien has.” His nostrils flared. “Castle matters. We don’t hold with that weird new stuff here.”
“Hmm,” Calli said. “As the volaran trainer, I’m not sure I want to send any of the winged steeds into battle with someone who isn’t strong in Equine. I don’t think I’ve seen either of you fly, either.”
“Volarans shouldn’t be just for battle. The beasts have other uses around a manor, too. You don’t know anything about how life is lived outside the Castle.”
Anger rose. “That’s pretty much right. All my experience has been in training volarans for partnering Marshalls and Chevaliers in battle and fighting the horrors. I haven’t seen much peace here.” Even now her husband was taking care of their estate and she was dealing with these sleazeballs who thought posturing was as important as fighting.
Turning her back on them, she went into the corral, smoothed a hand over the buckskin. The mare bent her neck around
Calli in a volaran embrace, looked at her with big brown eyes. I will be an excellent battlemare. Her ears twitched nervously, but determination radiated from her.
I will find you the right partner.
The bay pushed forward. I will be an excellent battle stallion.
Calli moved to him, ran her hand down his strong neck, tested the flavor of his Song. Yes. Fly to the Castle and speak to the Chevalier trainer there.
The black dipped her head. And me?
If you wish to stay with people—
I do! Good food. Warm stables. She licked her lips, then sent a sideways glance. Strong stallions.
Calli laughed. Then wait for Bastien to return from battle. He would cherish you and welcome you on his estate.
I came for you.
The simple statement had Calli fighting back tears. So teary today. Too many raw emotions. Here was someone who wanted her. Just her. No demands.
Thunder trumpeted. I am here, too!
Keeping her face in the black mare’s fragrant neck, Calli said, This is no place for a gentle soul like yourself. I will take you with me when I next go to my manor.
With a nicker and a lift of the wings, the bay flew away to the Castle.
Both men had watched in narrow-eyed, cross-armed silence.
“As you say, I’m most concerned with fighting the Dark.” She frowned, honestly curious. “Tell me, Lord Veenlit, when was the last time you lost people to the Dark?”
Again his fake sad expression. “I lost a village last year. Terrible, terrible.”
His Song pulsed and she caught a strain of terrified notes and the fact that after he’d heard of the massacre, he’d reinforced the walls of his castle.
“The land will be very fertile after this is done,” he said.
He seemed to realize he’d shocked her and set his face in sorrowful lines. “I grieve for all the lives we’ve lost.”
Yeah, right.
That night, Marian visited Calli in her tent. Did the Circlet know she missed Marrec so much her bones ached?
Marian tilted her head as if listening to the Songs in the tent. “You are very bonded to Marrec. Perhaps too bonded.”
Protector of the Flight Page 27