Heart Legacy

by Robin D. Owens

  “Would you like me to trim the bushes back for you?” Draeg pushed.

  For an instant her breath caught at the thought that he could be an ally instead of an opponent . . . or a distraction.

  No. She didn’t know him well enough to trust him, and probably wouldn’t learn enough about him in the next week or two to trust him. Or let herself be open and vulnerable and reveal her plans to him. “Thank you, no.”

  “There are horse riders in Druida City, you know. Not many, but some.”

  She hadn’t seen any and she didn’t want to call attention to herself. Just tuck the thought away that she needed to think about and alter her plans for her and her animals leaving. She shouldn’t have gone to CityCenter with Baccat last night and sampled food from someplace other than her own kitchens. She should have reviewed the route more—all the way from her gate to the portal in the southeast corner of the city.

  And it didn’t sound as if tonight she’d be tracing the route, either. Baccat had other plans. Soon, though, she’d have to quit amusing herself in the city and double-check her route. Perhaps tomorrow night.

  Glancing at Draeg, she found him sitting easily in the saddle, as if he’d spent a long time in one. She experienced a twinge of envy as she smiled at him. “No, I don’t think I will take the horses into the city proper.” She leaned forward and stroked Ragan’s neck, liking the feel of the horse’s hair bristling against her palm. “They need to feel safe here before they leave.”

  They needed to trust her, so when they all did leave, they wouldn’t be frightened of following her. But she’d learned that most animals trusted more easily than humans.

  The realization that she didn’t trust any human wrenched through her, and she swallowed hard. Sad and pitiable.

  She blinked back sudden tears and straightened in her saddle. The fact that she didn’t trust anyone might be sad and pitiable, but she wasn’t.

  Draeg still watched her, appearing not to be affected by her silences. He met her eyes and inclined his head. “Taking time to accustom your horses here before riding them outside the estate is a good strategy, and shows concern for your horses.”

  She only hoped her main strategy was as good. She knew it would be good for her when she left, and firmly believed it would be good for her animals. But she couldn’t leave them behind, not if there was the least chance her Family would harm them for her actions.

  A bird cawed, dove down and flew between the trees on each side of the road, swooped around them. Nice place, Corax sent. I will look more. And no folk with arrows or blazers.

  Lori didn’t think that her cuzes who putatively ran the farm, Vi and Zus, had arisen yet, and they didn’t own such weapons. The regular Family workers wouldn’t care about a scavenger bird.

  Draeg’s attention moved away from her to his Fam. Good.

  She looked at the raven, then into Draeg’s sapphire eyes. Perhaps she could determine whether he could be trusted, whether he might be a . . . an acquaintance favorable to her instead of a neutral party or an unfriend. Anyway, since she’d be spending some time with him, she should be friendly herself—as she’d decided yesterday. And when she left . . . after she got out of the walled Druida City . . . she’d send him a telepathic communication that he should escape Yew estate and the wrath of her Family himself. And if she hadn’t developed enough of a bond to speak to him mentally, she’d send Baccat, or warn Draeg’s own Fam, Corax.

  Studying him, she said, “Tell me about yourself. Where do you come from and what did you do before you came here?”

  Eleven

  D’Yew’s fragrance—like young spring shoots—drifted to him as Draeg pulled in a breath, deciding how to phrase his story. He could reveal a good part of the truth—and an ache of guilt bruised inside him that he lied to her—but he must definitely watch his words. Be detailed enough about some things that she wouldn’t think of any omissions.

  “I was born here in Druida, but from four until nine I grew up in the country, south of Druida.”

  She turned her head and her eyes blazed into his. “In the south? Where in the south?”

  “A little northeast of Gael City.”

  “Oh.” Her body tensed again and he got the idea that he’d answered the question wrong, but how and why?

  “When I was nine, I was apprenticed to a Noble household guard here in Druida.” Truth. Tab Holly, who’d owned The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon, was a Holly guard. The preeminent Holly guard.

  Draeg had shown an aptitude for fighting, and his First Passage that revealed his Flair had confirmed that he had fast reflexes, a sense for danger, an ability to stay cool in a fight. It was only later, when he’d lived with his adoptive father, Straif T’Blackthorn, that Draeg had begun to develop a portion of the legendary Blackthorn Flair for tracking. “I trained here until I was seventeen—” And suddenly he was breathless. He hadn’t meant to say anything about the worst time in his life.

  She looked at him and her pretty dark blond brows arched in question. Inhale, exhale, and her gaze went to his chest and that glance stirred his libido and that, in turn, eased the emotions crowding and tumbling inside him so he could finish the sentence. “—when my mentor and my natural parents died.”

  A little gasp from her. “Oh.” Her mouth turned down as if in sympathy. “I can feel how much that grieved you; I’m sorry it still hurts.”

  He jerked a nod, and he could sense her sympathy, but it felt . . . intimate in that it was in response to him and aimed at him, and distant . . . because she radiated sympathy, not empathy. She didn’t recall how it was to grieve for a parent. Or she didn’t think she would grieve for any of her relatives. He got the idea that if she’d thought of a death of one of her animals, though, she’d be devastated.

  No, the woman hadn’t been brought up like him. Didn’t value Family. And she was young.

  “How old are you?” he found himself asking, though he knew.

  “Eighteen.”

  He nodded. “You got your Second Passage.”

  “Yes.” Her mouth flattened as if she didn’t want to talk about the event. Well, it was never a conversational priority for him, either.

  She cleared her throat and, with a sideways gaze, asked the rude question of him. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four. A millennium baby, born in 400.”

  “I’ve been told that was a particularly auspicious year,” she said in a serious tone. When they took the fork not leading toward the Residence, her shoulders relaxed. Interesting.

  She slid him a glance. “So you trained as a guard. Did you hire on with any Noble estate? Did you work with any FirstFamily Noble before the Yews?”

  He didn’t know if she’d seen his references, but he kept to them. “I didn’t hire on with any FirstFamilies.” He’d been a proud lieutenant of the Blackthorn Family guards but hadn’t gone through any hiring process. His allowance had been upped by his adoptive father. Before that he’d worked at The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon with his mentor, not employed at T’Holly Residence. The Holly guards were all Family. Yeah, he minced his truths.

  “I worked as a merchant guard for a while, along the southern routes to Gael City and back, even went as far as the Plano Strait that separates the southern continent from us. Then returned.” That had been a bad time in his life, too, a dark gray time of no color and muffled emotions. “I was offered a job to accompany the folks excavating the lost starship Lugh’s Spear east across the continent to the crash site.” He shrugged. “I didn’t go.” The offer had been by people who cared about him and would have insisted on meddling in his life and talking to him all the time on the road, and there’d be no escaping them.

  “Why didn’t you go?” D’Yew’s eyes had rounded, her pupils getting larger as she hung on his every word.

  “Too damn far, too dangerous to come back alone, and I’d be stuck there—digging on the Ship or exploring it in bad air or something—for the whole summer.” Instead he’
d stayed home at T’Blackthorn Residence and stonewalled his adoptive parents and his older siblings when they expressed concern. He’d prowled the streets of Druida seeking trouble and finding it and delivering guys badder than him to the guardhouses.

  “You didn’t travel to Lugh’s Spear. What an adventure that would have been.” She sounded enthralled with the notion. Since the horses continued to walk, she patted Ragan’s neck.

  Draeg read the gesture. “Ragan would never have survived that trip.”

  D’Yew straightened, the sparkle in her eyes turning to horror. “Oh.”

  “Now I’m here,” Draeg said, and urged Smyrna into a faster pace, one of the special ones the mare had been trained in but was out of practice with.

  D’Yew and Ragan kept up, with the horse moving better than his own mount. Draeg thought that was because D’Yew’s bond with the animal had already grown strong. She seemed to have no problems opening herself to animal bonds while blocking most from humans . . . He tested the slight one developing between him and the young woman. Satisfaction glimmered within him. Yeah, he sensed the link and he’d be sure to encourage it. She trusted him on some level, probably because he took care of her animals and they liked him fine enough.

  Hoof falls and breathing and birdsong filled the wordless quiet between them. Draeg felt comfortable. More comfortable with D’Yew than he had with anyone else lately. But she had fewer, easier expectations of him. Ones he could fulfill.

  And he didn’t have to pretend to be anyone he wasn’t—like a responsible Noble of the Blackthorn FirstFamily who might be T’Blackthorn himself should Straif name Draeg as his heir. He didn’t have to see worry in his female relatives’ eyes when he left at night to hunt in—clean up—Druida City, torn inside because he knew he worried them, but still needed to prove himself.

  As they rode, he figured that D’Yew cherished these moments away from the Residence and her Family, too, if Baccat had told the truth about her relatives. Like him, she was expected to fulfill great responsibilities. In fact, from how she acted, and what she said—he sure didn’t like the idea that the Residence monitored her—she had to conform to more rules and manners and listen to more strictures than he.

  Here, he lived free of Familial concern, which lay like a burden on his shoulders when at home. Despite that, he believed in duty and responsibility and Family; that’s why he’d come here in the first place. Here where he had a job, which he should be doing.

  He opened his fingers to show the brass button gleaming on his palm. “Did you drop this? I found it near the back door when I came to check on you.”

  She glanced at it. “No. I don’t care for buttons. They catch on things.” She fingered the frayed cuff around her wrist showing embroidered long Yew leaves. “I like the standard tabs and spells along the seams.”

  “You don’t wear buttons at all?” He tilted the thing back and forth, but she didn’t look at it again.

  She grimaced. “I have some on stiff formal ritual robes, more for appearance than useful. Gold with rubies.” She rolled her shoulders, but he figured she couldn’t shift the burden of being D’Yew and she felt it bowing her back all the time.

  “Whose might it be?”

  “Ah, probably Cuspid or Folia or the twins, upper staff and inhabitants of the Residence. The cook or maids sure wouldn’t wear anything like those.” Lori’s horse picked up pace and he rode to match her.

  “Nobody’ll miss it? You recall seeing anyone with a lost button?”

  She looked at him, frowned in consideration, shrugged. “No, I don’t, though I suppose I might have noticed if one was missing. The Residence has dress standards. If you want to give it to me, I’ll send it to the button bowl.”

  “Button bowl,” he repeated.

  “Yes, in the sewing room.”

  “Sewing room!”

  “We do make our clothes here, you know, and that’s the ancient name for a place to keep fabrics and thread and buttons and whatnot. All of our clothes, though, use Flair.” She looked down at her own scruffy and stained but clean work tunic and trous. “Even these, and, naturally, we are expected to use them until they are worn out.” She smiled. “And these are comfortable. That matters to me.”

  “You want the button?” he asked.

  “No. It’s not important. Do what you want with it.” But she tilted her head and her eyes narrowed.

  He tucked it into his trous pocket. “You know how Corax loves shiny things.”

  Her face cleared and she chuckled. “Oh. Yes.”

  Dipping his hand in his pocket, he translocated the button to a drawer in the dresser in his apartment.

  Then he deliberately guided the horses down a good path he knew led to the Residence and not the stables. He must bring up the topic of her relatives. Just a little preliminary probing, gentle questions, nothing to make her feel that he spied on her or her Family, or that he asked her to tell Family secrets.

  When the trail branched toward the stables, he ignored the fork, and she followed after him, though he sensed reluctance. Soon they’d cleared the last of the thick trees that buffered the manor from one of the main avenues of Noble Country and looked at the front of the Residence straight on. It stood a good four stories in dull gray stone, with a long main block and two short arms facing them, both ending in stubby octagonal towers. A small walkway, complete with square crenellated walls, rimmed the roof of the whole building. Though the stone looked forbidding, there were a lot of windows, even two circular ones on either side of the front doors.

  “A pretty place. A solid home,” he commented.

  She shifted in her saddle. “Yes, the Residence is quite strong.”

  “Handsome,” he said, trying to draw her out.

  D’Yew shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “Do you have a room in one of the towers?” A young, romantic girl would like that, and a tower could be well defended, so the MasterSuite or MistrysSuite could be there.

  She gave a ladylike snort. “No. My rooms are on the second floor in the middle of the wall of the Residence, looking northward.” She paused. “For a long time, I wanted a sitting room and bedroom on the top floor that looked out on the river, or in the back where I could see the forest and then the city lights of Druida. But now I like that in the winter I can see the lights of the starship Nuada’s Sword through the leafless trees.”

  Rooms? Not a suite? And not on a corner with more space and windows and light? And on a middle floor where she could hear people above her and next to her and below her?

  Draeg scowled. This didn’t sound good—appropriate—for her, the head of a FirstFamily Noble House. It irritated him on her behalf.

  Sliding his eyes toward her, he continued, “I like it better than pictures of T’Blackthorn Residence, which is supposed to be the most beautiful Residence in Druida City.” His adopted home was very elegant, and though the place had homey areas, it also hosted entertainments for the FirstFamilies too often for Draeg’s peace of mind.

  “I’ve never seen T’Blackthorn Residence,” D’Yew said, like she didn’t care about Noble society at all. She leaned forward and petted Ragan, then glanced up at Draeg. “But across the road from us in the west, on a bluff, is D’Marigold Residence. It’s easily seen from the river banks. That Residence is pretty.”

  Draeg called up an image of the place, sort of a pale pink-yellow color, with layers and arches that reminded him of a wedding cake. He made a noncommittal noise.

  “I haven’t been down to the river,” he said.

  “It’s not too high yet; the big spring runoff from the mountains upstream hasn’t started.” D’Yew urged Ragan forward, passing him and Smyrna, moving down the path and taking the next left toward the stables. That way was wide enough for both horses, and he caught up with her.

  He gestured off toward the left and the small cottage of the gate house. Clearing his throat, he said, “I guess you know that I interviewed there, didn’t get into the main Residence.” He k
ept his voice matter-of-fact. “I’d have liked to step into such a place as D’Yew Residence.” Not a lie; he was doing his damnedest to state only the truth, even if his whole life here was a lie. “Talked to a guy calling himself the maître de maison, and your housekeeper.” From what they said, he’d deduced that a man who worked with animals and would live over the stables and not in the Residence wasn’t at all important . . . and the Residence had no interest in meeting him, so they’d used the gatehouse for their interview.

  During that interview, he hadn’t been able to set a tracking hook in either Cuspid Yew, the maître de maison, or Folia Yew, the housekeeper. He had noticed at the time that they both wore buttons.

  An antique-style vest had wrapped Cuspid’s skinny torso, four silver buttons marching down his flat abdomen, slightly straining over a small paunch.

  The housekeeper, a woman perhaps only a decade older than he, midthirties and attractive in a cold, elegant way, seemed to have whisked into the gatehouse just to study him, then left without a word. She, too, had had buttons, this time on the cuffs of her tunic sleeves and ankle cuffs that nipped in bloused fabric. Her buttons were smaller and looked to be carved of mother-of-pearl.

  Here and now D’Yew inclined her head, and her neck, her whole posture didn’t seem as supple. Because she’d been reminded of the starchy Residence and older members of her Family? Well, Draeg didn’t know too much about the Residence—the only one he knew who did was the former D’Yew, now Lahsin Holly—and she’d had nothing good to say about that being. Baccat had called the Residence “mean.” And from what D’Yew had let drop, the house was more demanding than supporting or sympathetic. In that it would match what Draeg had seen of the Family.

  “Yes, Cuspid, the maître de maison, and Folia, the housekeeper, run the estate,” D’Yew acknowledged in a colorless voice. She tossed a look at him and her eyes appeared greener. “I doubt you would have enjoyed being in the Residence.”