The light blue room had little furniture . . . a cabinet, a small altar for rituals, a couple of large soft chairs, and a tall twoseat was set in a reclining position where she could sleep if she wanted. All were in tones of midnight blue.
Signet sank down onto the pastel silk rug, angling so she faced the east wing, and beyond it, her land.
Unlike most nights, her mind roiled with thoughts like a tempest-driven sea.
She had embarked on an enterprise that would change her life forever.
Twelve
Thank the Lady and Lord that her loneliness and uselessness were over. She had a new life path.
Now if she could only shape it.
She would learn to make her Flair active instead of passive. She would direct it. No matter that she’d tried to master her slippery Flair before. Now she knew what it was, she could, would, visualize it better.
But right now, her mind hopped from thinking about her Flair to thinking about the desire Cratag stoked in her, to her feelings about him. Too huge to understand, and how could that happen so quickly?
Unless it wasn’t quickly at all. Unless she’d unconsciously noticed he watched her during the GreatRituals when he accompanied T’Hawthorn. Not as many lately as when T’Hawthorn had been Captain of All Councils.
She acknowledged that; knew, too, that she hadn’t known what to make of Cratag’s long stares. Not then. Now when he sent a look at her from those violet eyes, she knew what he wanted, what she wanted.
Could he be her HeartMate? She’d once thought she had a HeartMate, thought she’d touched him momentarily during her Second and Third Passages. Maybe his mental touch was like Cratag’s aura . . . and maybe she was deceiving herself.
It was widely accepted in her circles that HeartMates were to be found and treasured. That HeartMates had more stable marriages, produced more and greater Flaired children. So a person who had a HeartMate usually went searching for them.
But Cratag hadn’t been brought up in the noble circles of Druida like she had. He was a fascinating man from the southern continent, had lived an exciting life on the frontier that she could barely imagine. Big and tough, strong in more ways than the physical. Hadn’t he accepted a guardsman’s position with T’Hawthorn during a time when that lord was feuding and Cratag knew his life was on the line? That bespoke more than a physical toughness, a mental and emotional strength that Signet found incredibly attractive. He was a survivor.
And she’d had leanings toward . . . not surviving. Shame suffused her. Maybe it had been underlying guilt that had kept her from doing something stupid. Yesterday had been a very low day in her life. Her thoughts were fizzing off in all directions. She wasn’t even grounded. She wouldn’t be meditating much tonight, first quarter twinmoons or not. The new blessings of her life demanded a ritual of thanks, but that wouldn’t happen, either. Next full twinmoons would mark the beginning of the month of Ash, perhaps she’d celebrate that outside in a sacred grove. She grinned. Now that the FirstFamilies knew her Flair was for change, she’d be in demand. Most of the noble rituals were about shaping their planet and society, about change.
Circling back to her wonderful future.
But all was based on the past. She rose and went to a cabinet where she’d placed her parents’ memoryspheres that she’d retrieved from the HouseHeart that morning before breakfast. Even then she’d sensed that she wouldn’t want to meditate in the HouseHeart tonight.
Signet had never experienced the spheres. She’d always thought they’d be wrenching. She hesitated to access them, but it was necessary. Yesterday they would have broken her. Today she was stronger.
They were dated a couple of weeks after her First Passage at seven. She took one in each hand. They weren’t large . . . enough for a septhour or two, or an important visit by Vinni T’Vine’s predecessor, the old D’Vine, who’d been the prophetess of Celta for over a century.
Signet’s mother’s and father’s energy pulsed through the spheres, and tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Even nine years later she still missed them.
She couldn’t decide whose memories she wanted to experience, felt she could only bear one. Without thought her hand replaced her father’s sphere. She wanted to see him the most and she wouldn’t if she saw through his eyes.
She walked to the center of the room. Cradling the small citrine sphere in both her hands, she shut her eyes and nudged the memorysphere with her Flair.
Time rolled back to a hot, bright summer’s day.
Cara D’Marigold, she who had been a Sorrel, glanced up at her tall, dapper husband with the golden hair and lines beginning to etch into his face. He is so handsome, and I love him more after all these years than I did when I wed him.
Signet choked, clenched her hands around the sphere.
Thank the Lady and Lord he is with me, that we will do this together as always. He squeezes my hand in reassurance. His thoughts are excited and not as wary as mine, but his eyes gentle as they meet mine, and he says, “We don’t have to do this if you don’t wish.”
He knows very well that I won’t back away from this visit, no matter how nervous it makes me, and he squeezes my hand again.
“One does not deny a request to visit by a FirstFamily GreatLady, especially if she is the powerful oracle, D’Vine,” I say as I lean against his shoulder. I smile because I sound like the Residence, that arbitrator of all that is correct.
Cal brushes a kiss on my temple, soothing us both. “It must be about Signet.”
“Yes.” Our only child recently had her First Passage, and though she was Tested and showed great Flair, it wasn’t determined what kind of Flair she had. The latest small problem that niggles at us, making our lives less than boring perfection.
“We should have had D’Vine as an oracle at her birth,” Cal frets.
“She probably wouldn’t have come. T’Bay was good enough.” Though he couldn’t tell us Signet’s Flair, either.
Cal follows my thoughts. “Maybe we’ll find out now.” Sucking in his breath, he opens the door as the Residence tells us GreatLady D’Vine has arrived.
She stands before us, aged and straight and looking at us with uncanny blue green eyes. She shivers, an oldie who likes the heat, and Cal is disarmed. He leaves my side to slip a hand under her elbow and says, “You grace us with your presence, GreatLady. Please come up into the main sitting room and have some tea and cakes.”
Signet lost the train of conversation as it passed through courtesies, as they all went to the sitting room. The room was done in a mint green that Signet barely recalled, with many potted plants. She was swept along with her mother’s emotions . . . interest and pride and love for her child and husband. Signet didn’t focus on the talk until D’Vine put her teacup down, folded her hands, and said, “As you know, the FirstFamilies invite certain GrandHouses to participate in the GreatRituals throughout the year. I am pleased to say that they have usually listened to my recommendations, and also pleased to inform you that your Family has been chosen.”
Awe washes through me like high tide, followed by wariness. Usually when a FirstFamily wants something from the rest of us there is a price to pay.
Cal is tapping his fingers on his knee like he does when he is thinking about all angles of a problem. His toes tap the carpet softly in one of our dance patterns. “And you would want us to bring our young daughter, Signet, with us to those highest of noble rituals.”
I swallow back a bubble of nervous laughter. Cal doesn’t do “haughty” very well. Him calling the rituals “noble rituals,” which would include us, of course, as opposed to FirstFamilies and Favorites rituals, which is what most of us call those GreatRituals, might offend D’Vine. But he is not diplomatic, because he’s concerned for our Signet.
D’Vine inclines her head. “Yes, please bring Calendula.”
Tap. Tap. I can’t hear Cal’s fingertips, but I feel his emotions. Pride, above all, in our child, but protectiveness, too.
“She will have the benefit of being accepted by the FirstFamilies,” D’Vine says persuasively. “Make the acquaintance of the powerful.”
I wonder about that. Signet isn’t as outgoing as Cal or me, more like her uncle who hid in his rooms.
D’Vine gives me a sharp look, so I go with impulse and say, “What have you seen about Signet? Do you know her Flair?”
Temerity, and D’Vine’s expression goes impassive, but her eyes are bright and piercing.
She rises. “Please consider coming to the next Full Twinmoons Ceremony in GreatCircle Temple. You and your daughter will always be welcome.” She sighs, reminding us that despite her vitality, she is an old woman. Cal and I stand. “It is a shame you did not ask me to be an oracle at your child’s birth, it would have saved much time.” She shakes her head. “Ah, what will happen will happen when and how it needs to.” Then she *fixes* me with a look. “Signet is important to our generation and her own and those to come. Do not forget that.”
Cal escorts her to the door and when he returns he rubs his cheek against my hair and I relax. We do fit so well. “We’ll go to the rituals, and someday will find out what D’Vine knows.”
I tuck doubt into the back of my mind and savor the love of my husband. Finally our emotions settle into our strong and true bond, and I find he feels the same relief as I. Our wonderful Signet, our ugly duckling, will someday bloom into a swan.
Signet was weeping by the time her mother’s memory faded. She’d tried to be quiet, but sobs ripped from her, and she was helpless to speak when a tapping came at the door. Cratag looked in, then pushed the door open and walked silently over polished wood and silk rug until he crouched down before her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She couldn’t tell him, just shook her head. Such love she’d had and lost! The precious sight of her father, and her mother’s feelings about him, which he’d returned.
Cratag picked her up, and the memorysphere fell from her fingers. Even holding her, he caught the small orb, sucked in a breath. “Memorysphere.”
Nodding against his chest, Signet managed to snag a clean softleaf from her sleeve pocket and wipe her eyes. In a thick voice, she said, “About when D’Vine came and asked my parents to start attending the FirstFamily rituals.”
“Your Family wasn’t always part of those GreatRituals?”
“No, we only s-started after my F-first Passage.” She blew her nose as her own memories swam to the surface—the excitement of being in GreatCircle Temple with all those powerful lords and ladies and having new robes of orange trimmed in gold and the Flair of everyone in the circle. “We aren’t a sufficiently important Family to have been part of the rituals until then.”
“I didn’t know.”
Signet shrugged. Cratag placed her gently on the twoseat and started to draw away, and she kept hold of him, her arms around his neck. “Please stay.”
His nostrils flared as he inhaled, then he followed her down, keeping an arm around her, setting the memorysphere on the table in a way that it didn’t roll. He was a man conscious of his strength, with muscular grace in his every action. Not at all like her father.
More tears came to her eyes. Unique men, both of them.
Cratag settled next to her, flicked his fingers. “Female energy. Your mother’s memories?”
“Y-yes.”
For a couple of moments, they held each other in silence. “She loved you.”
“They both did.”
“You were lucky,” he said, his body tensing, then releasing . . . at the thought of his own mother?
“I know.” Signet moved until her head was on his shoulder, and she could feel the length of his side against hers. “I’d forgotten that lately, but I have been lucky.” The long time of people she cared for leaving her had been all the more painful for the love she’d remembered. She sniffed. “Like I said, D’Vine came here after my First Passage and asked us to be part of the GreatRituals. Yesterday T’Ash said that he thought my Flair might have helped those rituals.”
“T’Ash is generally right.”
“Yes. But I don’t think my parents ever found out what D’Vine knew about me.”
“That would have been Vinni’s MotherDam?”
Signet waved a hand. “A few generations more between them than that.”
Cratag grunted.
“But after my parents died and I continued to go to the rituals by myself, she never said anything to me. After she died, no one seemed to care whether I was at the rituals or not. So I went whenever I felt like it.” Most of the time, but not all, and not to some of the most important rituals, where her Flair might have made a difference if anyone had known of it. “I suppose I could ask Vinni to check old D’Vine’s records.” But young teen or not, he was still a GreatLord and with Flair greater than his ancestress’s and secrets of his own. She shook her head. “So I didn’t learn much from the memorysphere.” She’d thought it would answer all of her questions.
“That’s too bad.” Cratag began to sit up.
“Stay awhile, rest a bit. It’s been an eventful couple of days for you, too. We can trust the Fams and the Residence to watch over Avellana, and she’s only a couple of rooms away.”
As if conjured by Signet’s thought, Du and Beadle trotted in. Du hopped up and settled at Signet’s hip, purring.
Beadle thumped onto the twoseat and draped himself over Cra tag’s ankles. Mousies outside very interesting. Skirls ran away from me! But night is cool and FamMan is warm.
He felt very warm to Signet, the man gave out heat as well as energy. Du said nothing.
“Glad you’re in,” Cratag said, the pauses between his words telling Signet that she’d been right. He was as tired as she. Unlike her, he’d slept in a strange place last night, been in a different environment all day.
“Rest,” she murmured, and it wasn’t until his breathing had slowed into sleep that she focused on something else—the twinmoons shooting light through the windows, both waxing and at the apex of their First Quarter.
It seemed appropriate to whisper a small prayer of thanks and for blessings in her life to grow like the twinmoons, though she knew that had already started.
She was looking forward to the next day. The man beside her, and Avellana, and the Fams, would ensure it was an interesting one.
Cratag woke to a woman in his arms and a raging case of lust. Beadle bounded up his body in three hops and licked his cheek. New day. After dawn. Critters stirring. I am going *out,* but back for breakfast. He jumped from the twoseat with a thunk and trotted out the door.
Du uncurled from a neat circle, stretched, and yawned. He slipped down from the twoseat and slid from the room with a muttered Residence showed Me a no-time just for Me. I will have a nibble before breakfast. Since the cat was too thin, Cratag thought that was a good idea. Almost as good as him getting the hell out of this sleepchair before he rolled over and took Signet.
But she was opening blurry blue eyes and smiled at him, and his breath stopped. Her gaze was gentle, affectionate even. She didn’t seem to notice his scars, and that was good, damn near a miracle. He couldn’t recall the last time a woman he’d met only a few hours before had looked past his scars to him. Though they hadn’t just met. They’d been acquainted for years, long enough for her to get used to his face.
Her own face was flushed more than usual, giving her a rosy color, tinting her lips darker, plumping them, tempting him beyond resistance. He leaned down and brushed her mouth with his own. Soft.
Her body would be soft under his, too.
Thirteen
He leaned closer and closer, his blood throbbing in his body all the way down to his groin. Her eyes got wider and bluer, the air around her seemed to lighten and turn golden. She reached up and slid her palms behind his neck, and her touch there dragged a groan from him.
No, his control was gone. He pulled her close and rolled so she was atop him, her breasts against his chest, the softness of he
r stomach against his raging erection. He set his lips on hers, swept his tongue across her mouth, ready to plunge in.
The doors banged shut with a crack, and he rolled again, jumping from the twoseat to put his body between her and the entrance.
Breakfast is served, the Residence said, then, Avellana has been down to the dining room and the kitchen and is now returning to this floor. I have reminded her not to run up the stairs.
“Fligger!” Signet snapped, and Cratag stared at her.
She scowled and ran her hands through her hair curling around her shoulders. “I can curse if I want to.”
Cratag lifted and dropped a shoulder. “’Course you can. Just didn’t expect it of you.”
She sniffed and rose from the twoseat. For an instant her tunic pressed against her breasts, showing the small hardness of her nipples. Cratag’s body clenched. He wanted this woman under him, mingling her panting moans with his, rising in passion so she’d cry out in ecstasy.
She swished by him and opened the doors, frowning at the glass panes. “Curtains are going back on these doors.”
“Signet!” Avellana cried. “It is time for breakfast. You didn’t answer your door so I let you sleep, but the Residence wouldn’t let me choose my own breakfast, and I came back and—”
“Avellana, it is not time for breakfast. We have a half-septhour yet.” Signet was walking toward the child, keeping her from seeing Cratag in the sitting room. He was irritated with himself. If he was a noble, or had better Flair, he could have teleported away.
Heart Change Page 12