“I’ve been . . . content. But I miss Draeg.”
“I am also pleased to hear that. Do you have his perscry locale?”
“I—no.” Her hands twined in her apron. Somehow T’Blackthorn’s scry should have reassured her. But he wasn’t Draeg. She’d have to face rejection from Draeg.
“Do you wish his perscry locale?”
“Yes,” she made herself say, then weakened it with, “I must think.”
T’Blackthorn’s brows dipped. “Don’t think too long, and don’t feel. Just do.” His quick smile was lopsided. “I know what I’m speaking about.”
She couldn’t guess that he did, but she nodded anyway and said, “But he loves you and his Family and Druida City and . . . Yew estate.”
With a cutting gesture, T’Blackthorn said, “Don’t rationalize or put obstacles in your way. A man should be with his woman.”
They stared at each other.
“I am also calling on behalf of the AllCouncils with regard to the Yew Family and Residence,” T’Blackthorn repeated, and focused her thoughts on the other matter she didn’t want to think about, though it was less painful than Draeg.
“I heard you.”
His eyes piercing, T’Blackthorn dropped his next words like heavy weights. “Yew Residence is dying.”
All the breath pumped from Lori as she fell against the edge of the counter. “What?” she squeaked, and then she said more firmly, “Impossible.”
“It is quite possible. The Yew Family is in great disarray. The twins, Zus and Vi, were convicted of attempted murder, fitted with DepressFlair bracelets, and banished to the island where we send such criminals. Their father, Cuspid Yew, accompanied them at his own request.” He cleared his throat and glanced beyond her left shoulder. “Folia Yew committed suicide before she came to trial.”
“What?” Lori’s knees gave out and she sat down hard on the kitchen floor. Impossible. Folia wouldn’t have done that. “She’s dead?”
“Yes. GentleLady Valerian?” T’Blackthorn demanded. “Are you all right?”
“One moment, please.” With a weak gesture she slid a high stool from the breakfast bar to her, struggled onto it, stared blankly down at the concerned face of T’Blackthorn.
Softly he began again. “The Yew Family is in great disarray. There is no one person who has great enough Flair to become the GrandLord or GrandLady. Yew Residence is dying. It has used much of its stored energy to sustain itself. It cannot, or will not, accept help from us, the other FirstFamilies. Our Residences inform us that the former masculine personality has fractured and, like the Family, other personalities struggle for sanity and supremacy.”
Lori thought of the HouseHeart. Gentle, loving. Dying.
Forty
So my question, as the representative of the FirstFamilies, is whether you, former Loridana Yew, will allow the Yew Family to be dissolved and the Yew Residence to die?”
Shock kept her silent and frozen for a good five minutes. T’Blackthorn did not end the scry. She got the idea that he’d wait septhours for her answer, and if she ended the scry, she’d have someone from the FirstFamilies on her doorstep . . . they probably already had someone here, or staying with one of the neighbors. That’s what her Family would have done, and all the FirstFamilies were known for their manipulation.
“Loridana?”
He’d told her not to rationalize or put obstacles in the way of loving Draeg. But her mind did so now with this outrageous question.
“My Family will not want me,” she said weakly.
“As opposed to being dissolved?” T’Blackthorn asked. He coughed and again did not look at her. “Much regarding your life in the Residence and the way the twins and Folia treated you was revealed during the trials. I’m told that shocked the rest of the Yews.”
Humiliation flushed through her, hot and nasty. She didn’t look at him, either.
“And, Loridana, can’t you think of the other members of your Family that you valued?”
Too many faces came to mind. People she knew little, but respected, as they respected her—now.
“You want me to return.” She focused on scanning the house she was making a home. “All of you. Every other FirstFamily Lord and Lady wants me to do this, to save the Yews and become GrandLady D’Yew in fact.”
“That is correct.”
“You’re the representative of the AllCouncils. The AllCouncils want me back, too.”
“Yes.”
A thought occurred. “What happened to the Traditionalist Stance?”
“I’m afraid that political party could not survive the scandal of its fanatics,” T’Blackthorn said with false concern. “Though many of us thought the whole thing nothing but fanatics in the main anyway.”
“It’s over.”
“So it seems.”
That had her meeting his eyes again. “What do you mean?”
“Folia Yew indicated to you that she had a partner in leading the fanatics?” T’Blackthorn asked.
“Yes.”
“My son heard that, also. But she refused to say anything after she was arrested, and then she . . . died.”
“Oh.” Lori thought she heard all sorts of nuances in his voice.
“We continue to be watchful and alert. Her partner must be hiding. Sooner or later we will get him.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think any other Yews than Zus, Vi, and Folia were involved?”
“No.”
“Loridana, are you going to let your birth Family be dissolved? Your childhood home die? Your estate be confiscated by the AllCouncils and parceled up? Your Yew trees destroyed?”
“They wouldn’t do that! No one would do that!”
“No?” T’Blackthorn shrugged. “Who knows what happens to the land when the Family with ties to it is dissolved, and the Residence dies?”
He only let a minute pass this time before saying matter-of-factly, “We have a fast personal airship waiting to bring you here to Druida City on the estate to your north. It can leave in an septhour and you’ll be here by noon tomorrow. I assure you, your remaining Family will welcome you with tears of joy.” Something in his voice caught her attention.
“T’Blackthorn?” she asked reflexively.
“A Family should be cherished, Loridana. They should have cherished you. They failed. Can you find it within you to cherish them?”
She stared.
“As a young man, I lost all of my Family to a sickness, you know.”
She hadn’t. “No wonder you love the one you have now, and Draeg loves you.”
T’Blackthorn nodded.
“But my animals! They are my Family. I will not desert them.”
T’Blackthorn’s nostrils flexed. “We have transports—”
“But—”
He lifted a hand, and she sensed the power of the man. “We have sufficient transports standing by to move your animals and bring them to Druida City as quickly as possible. They should not be more than a few days behind you.”
She had to choose. To abandon her Family here to save those she’d already turned her back on.
Baccat hopped onto the counter and looked down into the scry bowl with a sneer, and she understood he’d been following the conversation. Smiling up at her, he said, Took those Noble humans long enough to contact Us and request that We return to Druida City and the Yew estate. We should go back and be restored to Our rightful places. You can talk to Our four-legged Family mentally as we travel.
“I have a pie in the oven,” she said blankly.
T’Blackthorn grinned. “Bring it.” Then he asked, “What kind?”
* * *
When the FirstFamilies arranged matters, events proceeded at an accelerated pace. Before she left, she visited every member of her animal Family and, touching them, informed them of their journey, sent them love, and coated as many as possible with personal armor. She was still with them when the people who would transport them arrived; they studied each other a
nd she finally met some of the Sallow Family. The Councils didn’t shirk on paying for the best, either.
Convinced her beasts would be in good hands, Lori packed lightly. After all, she’d left a full wardrobe, though she’d filled out a bit more in the past months.
And all through the afternoon and night she planned, and dozed, and thought long and hard about what she should do, and when she should do what.
She carried Baccat from the airship and saw Straif T’Blackthorn there to meet them.
Her Fam didn’t deign to greet the GrandLord. I am going to Our estate NOW. To apprise everyone that We are back! He licked her cheek, then jumped down and disappeared.
Be careful of teleporting! she shouted telepathically, then sensed he’d already arrived at the Yew estate, and her nerves began to twitch at the knowledge. He’d be rounding up the Family members and asking them to gather in the great hall of the Residence for a Discovery Day ritual.
“Loridana?” T’Blackthorn asked.
Donning the posture and the manner she’d been drilled in all her life, Lori nodded to T’Blackthorn and said, “Tell me where Draeg is.”
The GrandLord grinned, took her hand, and tucked it in his elbow. “He’s at the Sallows’, I’ll ’port you there.”
“Not quite yet. I need to purchase something from T’Ash’s shop, first.” The wealth of the Yews had already been released to her. Appropriate that the first thing she bought with her own, her ancestral gilt, would be marriage bands. The copper with sapphire and amethyst ones she’d seen in T’Ash’s shop.
T’Blackthorn’s brows went up. “I can take you there, too.”
Less than a quarter septhour later, T’Blackthorn teleported with Lori to the Sallows. The minute her feet touched the ground, T’Blackthorn disengaged himself, said, “Come to dinner tomorrow,” and vanished, leaving Lori in a shadowy corner of a stable courtyard. Unlike her own—the Yews’—this yard was a full square, and in one of the corrals, Draeg schooled a magnificent black stallion. Both gorgeous males.
Suddenly, Lori wanted to look her best for him, beautiful for him. Her mind scrambled for an image of clothes, enhancements, for a Whirlwind Spell.
A shout interrupted her pondering and she looked up to see Draeg vaulting over the paddock fence, running toward her, his face showing desperate hope. Then he slowed to a walk, his expression impassive.
But she’d seen enough to ease her nerves, a little.
He came up to her and bowed. He was dressed like a trainer. So was she.
Her gaze met his hard blue one, then she glanced beyond him to the stallion watching them. “A very beautiful horse,” she said. Like the ones in her books, the horses she’d dreamed of.
“He’s mine.” A pause, and quieter. “No, yours.”
Courage. She stepped into him, her breasts touching his chest, her hands framing his face, eye to eye. “I . . . I love you, Draeg Betony-Blackthorn.” A breath. “Will you wed with me and be T’Yew?”
He flinched and horror shot through her; she wheeled back, but he caught her and crushed her, and his lips were on hers and his tongue in her mouth and she tasted him and knew she was home.
Long minutes later, they separated and Lori flushed as she saw the audience of a dozen people grinning at her.
Loudly, Draeg announced, “Yes, I will marry you, Loridana Itha Valerian D’Yew, and accept the title of T’Yew.”
Clapping rang through the yard. Then Draeg looked her in the eyes, claimed her hands, and said, “My HeartMate.”
And she saw it then, felt it, the huge bond between them, and a golden bond waiting for loving to bind them together forever. She sniffled, but opened T’Ash’s box to give Draeg the marriage bands. He took them and studied them with wonder, translocated them away . . . until their wedding ceremony.
After she’d been introduced to the stallion and they’d groomed him together, they borrowed a glider, drove to Yew estate, and parked outside the front gate.
Holding his hand, she opened the gate and once again stepped onto Yew land. Chimes echoed throughout the estate, as loud as Winterberry’s voice months ago, but this time the sounds were lovely and musical. She heard shouts in the distance, from the Residence.
Draeg began to run, and she kept up with him. When the house came into view, she saw all the doors and windows open. The cook and some of the cleaning staff awaited them on the steps, obviously weeping.
When she and Draeg drew near, everyone fell back, and Lori scanned the faces, missing some, and, yes, cherishing the sight of others.
She and Draeg moved into the middle of the great hall. “Yew Residence?” Lori asked.
“Loridana!” The shout echoed throughout the house from roof to HouseHeart, and through every person in the great hall. “Loridana Itha Valerian Yew!” And as it recited her name the multiple voice refined into one, a female voice, but not the HouseHeart’s. “I am Breva, the D’Yew Residence.”
“Greetyou, Breva.” On a shaky breath, Lori said, “I have come home, and I have brought my HeartMate, Draeg Betony-Blackthorn, who is T’Yew.”
Cheers erupted and Lori flushed. Glancing at Draeg, she saw a trace of red beneath his cheeks, too. She faded back and offered her right hand to the cook. “And now we will celebrate Discovery Day with a ritual.”
In the ritual, she pulled energy from them all, cycled it among them, and the warmth of it, the shared bonds surprised everyone, and the affection they had for each other multiplied the strength of the Flair, of what she’d had to do alone all these years. A good lesson for them all. She would not be powering the Family spells, funding the Residence’s spells, working on the estate in ritual all by herself.
She had a Family.
Perhaps a Family with strained and broken connections, but surely if she gave them kindness and . . . affection . . . they would return it. After all, what did she know about the individual members? Previously, what had they allowed themselves to reveal to the others, in daily actions, and in rituals like these? Not much.
But now they knew her, and knew that she demanded different things from them: openness, respect for her and each other, an acceptance of human frailties and mistakes.
This was not the Family she’d have built, but perhaps they could all regain—no, build together—a kinder household than she’d left.
From his seat on her feet, Baccat purred, and she felt the vibration move through her toes upward to her heart.
She heard the swish of wings, and Corax lit on Draeg’s shoulder, made a throaty noise of satisfaction, leaned over, and plucked a thick strand of her hair from her bun, tugging gently enough that she wasn’t hurt, and joined the circle.
No, nothing hurt about this circle, connecting with her Family. She thought her spirit expanded and theirs did, too. They’d lost Family members, people who might have been better if the Family had been built on love instead of fear, or greed for power.
Draeg turned his head and winked at her, and warmth, more than affection, more than sex, true HeartMate and HeartBonded love filled her. She sent some of that around the circle, too.
She had him, her fighter, to help her.
Instinctively, she lifted her hands above her head, raising Draeg’s and the cook’s, too. All around the circle, arms went up.
“Welcome, Discovery Day! We are thankful for our planet and our land and our Family.”
“Welcome, Discovery Day,” said the Residence in throaty female tones.
Everyone else echoed the sentiment, and joy washed through them, doubled, redoubled until an effervescence of Flair filled them and spread from them into the Residence, restoring them all.
When they closed the circle, the Residence appeared pristine again, but also more cheerful. And after the party, when everyone retired, Draeg insisted that they walk to the stables. There, in the entryway of the north block, he swept away dust to reveal a fabulous mosaic of Ragan and Smyrna that he must have done months before.
Lori turned to her lover, her man, her He
artMate. “We’re home and together and Family and you are my beloved HeartMate.”
“Yes, beloved HeartMate.” This time he put his hands around her face, and she savored the toughness in them. “I will always fight for you and with you.” His voice sounded rough. “But if you need to walk away, I will be at your side.”
She curled her hands around his thick wrists. “Thank you. I love you.”
And he swept her up in his arms and they explored each other again in the warm shadows.
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