Heart Change

by Robin D. Owens

  He owed her so much, the change in his Flair, the change in his heart. Just knowing her. Clenching his teeth, he looked at her, and his will nearly failed when he saw the tears magnifying her blue eyes. But she was still a princess, and one who had come into her own. He gulped, forced words from his lips. “I can’t come home with you. You deserve more.”

  She blinked away the tears, and her eyes flashed. She squeezed his fingers hard, then stood and stepped back, spine straight, chin lifted. Sophisticated noblewoman. “Yes, I do,” she said with a cutting edge. “I deserve a man who knows his own worth and the worth of my love and his own.” She turned on her heel in a move he’d taught her and marched from the room.

  Marched. Not danced.

  He wondered when she’d dance again.

  He never would. Memories would be too painful.

  During the next eightday, Cratag couldn’t settle in his rooms in T’Hawthorn Residence. The dimness of the place depressed his spirits. Even when T’Hawthorn moved him to a huge, sunny suite comprising one entire floor in a many-windowed square tower, the light wasn’t enough to make him feel good.

  Beadle stayed in the tower and courtyard, outside. Otherwise the cat slunk around the place, keeping a wary eye out for T’Hawthorn’s Black Pierre, who loathed him as common and ugly.

  Just like his master.

  To his surprise, he received a gold “favor” token from D’Hazel as well as a year’s salary. He hung the token on a string and wore it when he wasn’t training. He wasn’t sure what it meant to him—a mixture of survival and suffering and failure.

  He testified at Hanes’s trial, and the man was banished from Druida, a tracking spell set into his bone marrow so he could always be found.

  Seeing Signet had hurt. She’d come into her own, looked like a strong princess, not an ethereal and diffident one.

  One night, after Cratag’s ninth round of pacing, the Residence had snarled at him, and he’d left. He’d walked through the quiet night, under the blazing of the stars and the brightness of the waning moons, out of Noble Country and clear across town to BalmHeal, the hidden estate that only let the desperate in.

  He’d been there once before, when he’d first arrived in Druida, not knowing whether T’Hawthorn would accept him as part of the Family, give him a position and a home.

  It depressed Cratag even further when he had no trouble finding the place and walking through one of the doors in the walls to the estate.

  The gardens were now well cared for, the sacred grove humming with power and Flair. In the distance he could see brightly lit window squares glowing in the refurbished Residence. The Mugwort Family had settled in, made the place and themselves happy.

  He wished he was.

  He shucked his clothes and settled into the hot springs, hissing as the heat and herbs penetrated his muscles. He’d been training the Hawthorn guards mercilessly.

  They weren’t happy either. Because of him.

  Neither was Signet.

  Though their bond was tiny now, Cratag was compelled to check on it often.

  She was busy, determined, a survivor, but she wasn’t happy. Sometimes he thought he heard her weeping in the night.

  He’d hurt her, and that was a failure, too. But couldn’t she see that they didn’t belong together?

  After a soak that didn’t ease his mind a bit, he climbed from the pool, dressed, and trudged back through the city. At CityCenter a silent glider pulled up next to him, the T’Hawthorn Family glider. He got in. Beadle stretched from his sleeping curl, got on Cratag’s lap, and kneaded a minute, then fell back to sleep. They rode back to T’Hawthorn Residence in a silence that was only broken by the announcement that T’Hawthorn wanted to see him later at MidDayBell, and he was relieved of duties in the morning so he could sleep.

  Cratag carried Beadle up to their tower and crawled into the luxurious linens on the nicely sized bedsponge and slept. Beadle dreamed of chasing skirls. Cratag dreamed of running and never getting anywhere.

  Signet still hurt. The first afternoon and night without Cratag—without anyone but Du in the Residence—she’d curled up into a ball and held herself and grieved and endured the pain. No other abandonment had stabbed her heart so horribly, as if she leaked blood with every breath. It was as bad as when her parents had died.

  Someone from T’Hawthorn Residence had come and taken Cratag’s belongings, and she didn’t even rise to greet them. She had the Residence cleanse and close off the suite Cratag had used. She didn’t want to see it for a while. The house even made an illusion of a smooth wall—complete with a spell light bracket—over the door, and that was fine with her. For now. She didn’t quite know what the Residence felt, didn’t want to add that to her own hurt.

  But the next morning Du had wanted loving and adoration and special food, and the Residence had reminded her that this year she was hostessing an annual ritual, Flair for the Arts, that was coming up soon. Not to mention the requests for consultation that had begun pouring in before she’d even returned to the Residence from the HealingHall. And there was Hanes’s trial.

  So she’d risen from bed and put one foot in front of the other and did things in a schedule now combined of Before and After Avellana. A healthy breakfast; a walk along the cliffs—not too close to the edge; returning to the Residence to plan the party and to think about how she would craft her career, mixing the not-quite-frivolous duties of her former life with her new, more “serious” vocation.

  She had life, and the Residence and Du, and a career.

  And hope.

  Cratag still lived, as did she. While they lived and were HeartMates there was hope. She could wait until Cratag worked through his stupidity and came back to her.

  He’d been right, deep down she was an optimist. That got her through the following days. As the Residence pampered her and made appointments for her to work hard, as she helped others, as she meditated, Signet found strength within her that she didn’t know she had.

  In a moment of clarity untrammeled by emotions, she thought it odd that she, the one with the hideous fear of abandonment, had not been the one of them to walk away from love. It had been he, with an inconceivable lack of confid ence, who had broken their bond.

  Because once she had accepted love—HeartMate or not—life had been better, and she knew they belonged together, would be together. Just her luck he was hardheaded and didn’t feel that, know that all the way to his bones. He felt and “knew” other things.

  At night she allowed herself to be weak, wondering how long her stubborn and downright blind-to-his-own-qualities lover would remain away. But during the day she and the Residence worked hard, setting up her schedule, refining her services. Learning her business and her capabilities—and her limitations.

  By the time the day for the annual Flair for the Arts ceremony and party had come, she was wearing less of a shell, beginning to feel lighter emotions, to enjoy her life. She and her household were determined this would be the best event ever.

  Everyone important in the arts was coming, of all ages: the older generation with T’Apple, the artist, and his daughter D’Holly, the composer, to Avellana, who had been apprenticed to T’Apple. She had decided to become a professional holo-artist. Vinni and D’Hazel were attending for the first time as Avellana’s guests. Good power and Flair for stirring creative juices and drawing abundance into the art scene.

  Signet would be officiating as Lady and Priestess, and Raz Cherry, a handsome actor a few years younger than she, would be taking the part of Lord and Priest.

  The day was warm and beautiful, and for the first time in a while she felt like dancing. She had a new pair of light blue shoes with sky crystals making a waxing moon crescent on the toe to dance in.

  * * *

  Exactly as the antique clock in the hallway chimed MidDayBell, Cratag, with Beadle on his shoulder, rapped at the door to T’Hawthorn’s ResidenceDen.

  At his lord’s “Enter,” Cratag controlled his emotions an
d his expression and went in, closing the door softly behind him.

  T’Hawthorn sat behind his desk. “Welcome, Cratag.” It was the same thing the man had said when they’d first met. Cratag couldn’t find words, so he nodded. Beadle wriggled, and Cratag put him down. The FamCat began nosing about the far side of the room. T’Hawthorn’s Fam, Black Pierre, growled.

  T’Hawthorn ignored the cats, so Cratag did, too. His pulse had picked up rate.

  “First, let me thank you for providing the Family blessing for Laev during his wedding ceremony that I was foolish enough not to attend.” T’Hawthorn’s jaw flexed. “I’d hoped to be smarter by this time in my life.”

  He tapped a large clear crystal sphere on his desk that Cratag hadn’t noticed, and a viz formed of Laev’s wedding near the end of the ceremony. Cratag saw himself in rumpled clothes with pale face and glassy eyes. He lurched into the ritual circle and said the Family blessing. He looked like he’d spent a month in the Cave of the Dark Goddess. No wonder Laev and Nivea and the Sunflowers had been angry with him.

  “Thank you,” T’Hawthorn repeated. “And thanks from D’Grove and T’Oak. They were not invited,” he ended drily. He tapped the sphere, and the viz disappeared to Cratag’s relief.

  “Have you heard from Laev?” Cratag asked.

  “Once.” T’Hawthorn paused. “He doesn’t look as well as I would like.” The lord gazed beyond Cratag’s right shoulder. “It is known that in a HeartMate marriage there is the giving and the receiving of the HeartBond during loving. The connection that joins a pair so deeply that if one dies, the other will follow within a year.” A tiny shrug of T’Hawthorn’s shoulders. “I don’t know this from experience.” Now the lord met Cratag’s eyes, and Cratag saw they were shadowed by sorrow. “Laev has been wed for days—and nights. No doubt he has offered the HeartBond, or tried to.” T’Hawthorn frowned. “I don’t know if one can summon a HeartBond for a wife who is not a HeartMate.”

  There was a moment of heavy silence.

  “You didn’t appear at your best in the viz,” T’Hawthorn said.

  Cratag hooked an ankle over his knee.

  “And that was before you fought Hanes and were blazered and ended up in Primary HealingHall. Vinni T’Vine has paid those bills, by the way. But, to continue, I doubt you were in the condition you should have been, physically and emotionally, to make life-altering decisions.”

  More quiet.

  T’Hawthorn steepled his fingers. His face relaxed into weary sadness, and Cratag sensed with amazement that the man was sad for him, as well as grieving for Laev. “I will always welcome you here and honor you.” The lord smiled crookedly. “But perhaps, like Laev, it is time for you to live on your own. Has it occurred to you that you might do some freelance guarding, for instance during the day, as you did on those outings for Avellana Hazel?”

  “No one would—”

  “Of course they would.” Impatient arrogance was back in T’Hawthorn’s voice, and Cratag finally realized the man was struggling with big emotions just like he was. For the first time Cratag spared a fleeting thought for the lord’s long-dead wife. She had been a Heather, from the Healing Family. Had she been gentle and elegant, and had T’Hawthorn loved her? Had he been a different man before her loss?

  Loving changed a person just as completely as any catalyst Flair.

  Cratag was not the same man he’d been when he’d last lived in this Residence.

  T’Hawthorn stared at Cratag with eyes the same violet as his own. Yes, he’d found Family, but still had considered himself an outlander.

  The lord said, “I can spread the word that you will be taking bodyguard jobs.” He hesitated. “Did D’Marigold give you any gifts?”

  Cratag jiggled his foot. “Boots, three pairs of boots. The woman loves shoes.”

  The lord looked at the deep red celtaroon boots, and Cratag thought he saw a flash of envy. Envy! That was almost enough to make him smile.

  “I heard that D’Marigold’s shoes at Bright Brigid’s Day Fair were snatched up in ten minutes.”

  And Cratag got a flicker from his lord’s mind that the man had heard it from his current mistress. Cratag suppressed the shock that he’d sensed T’Hawthorn’s thoughts. The lord was ultra discreet, for Cratag had never been truly aware of any of his lord’s lovers or whether he had one or several or what. Maybe that would change now that Laev was not a child and living in the Residence.

  “Brigid’s Day Fair,” Cratag echoed, nearly flinching. Beadle hopped onto his lap.

  “Listen to me, Cratag, you were a hero.” The lord used his most commanding voice.

  “I didn’t watch Avellana. I left her alone.”

  “In a highly aware Residence with at least two adult FamCats, one of whom was her own. Cratag, she was drawn away from you, from everyone, by someone she—and Vinni T’Vine and the Hazels—trusted. You think this couldn’t have happened at D’Hazel Residence?”

  Cratag got the impression that T’Hawthorn had asked the Hazels that very question, and he answered as they would have done. “No. Someone always watched Avellana at their Residence.”

  “And you think that’s good for a child? That she doesn’t know that and resent it?” Again the echo of previously said words. T’Hawthorn made a short gesture. “You think she didn’t slip away? Out of sight of anyone? Wouldn’t have gone to Hanes if he’d waved from their garden?”

  Knowing Avellana, she would have done that.

  “You saved her life. So it’s not ‘failure’ that is truly bothering you, is it? What is it, Cratag?”

  He’d never had such a personal conversation with his lord before. Cratag shrugged and answered part of the question. “I didn’t—don’t—know about Bright Brigid’s Day. Even now.” Outsider rang in his head.

  The lord’s violet eyes turned piercing, drilled into Cratag. “Are you going to make a very bad, very foolish mistake of walking away from love?”

  Now Cratag felt disappointment in him rolling from T’Hawthorn, and Cratag’s chest tightened.

  I want to go back home, to D’Marigold Residence, Beadle said. He looked curled up and asleep, but his body quivered with interest. Hiding from Black Pierre and T’Hawthorn, but strongly connected to Cratag.

  He stroked the cat, and Beadle continued, I love you, but Signet loves you, too, and me. We belong there.

  Cratag got an image of Signet and the elegant small Du, a cat Beadle could intimidate with size. Black Pierre was as big as Beadle.

  “Listen to your Fam,” T’Hawthorn said, petting his. Black Pierre opened his eyes and sneered at both Beadle and Cratag.

  Could Cratag possibly act like a GrandLord? Be a GrandLord? He didn’t think so. Couldn’t ever match Signet’s style and grace, the innate power of this man before him. Not to mention the Flair that was rocketing Signet’s career and had her name on many lips and in the newssheets.

  Are you going to walk away from love? T’Hawthorn asked again, mentally, knowing that Cratag could hear him.

  Yes, Cratag had changed, and his Flair had increased to its limits. Still tiny in comparison to T’Hawthorn’s or Signet’s.

  But his love was huge. His love for his lord, this man who he realized was a friend; his love for Laev, so big that he ached at the thought of the young man’s disillusionment, the emotional battering he’d experience; his love for the staunch and loyal and goofy Beadle.

  His love for Signet was as immense as the ocean.

  He might not be able to match her in Flair, but he could certainly match her in love.

  He might not be a good GrandLord, consort to D’Marigold—T’Marigold—Lord and Lady help him!—but he could be an excellent partner and husband to Signet.

  Raising Beadle to his shoulder and attaching him with a minor spell, Cratag answered T’Hawthorn’s question. No. I am not going to walk away from love. He said aloud, “Though I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself.”

  T’Hawthorn waved that aside. “I’ll spread the word
that you’ll accept daily bodyguard jobs.” He studied Cratag. “You could do some private fig hting tutoring. Isn’t there someone you’ve run across lately who isn’t as good at fighting as they should be?”

  Hanes hadn’t been, that was for sure, but Cratag put the villain out of his mind. Signet. Avellana. And. . . .

  “The simulacrum,” he said. “The simulacrum is bad at fighting with sword and long knife.”

  T’Hawthorn smiled, looking like Laev. “And simulacrums’ movements are modeled after real-life fighters.” Nodding, the lord said, “I’ll call T’Furze, let him know that. Recommend you. He’ll hire you for that, for more. I know the simulacrum I purchased was a mixture of several fighters’ styles.”

  Cratag grunted, found a smile on his own lips. “Mostly Holly. Maybe a touch of T’Ash.”

  “T’Ash would have done it for the amusement factor, but I’d bet you’ll be a better value for T’Furze, and he counts his silver slivers. Don’t sell yourself cheap, though.”

  “No.” Not ever again.

  Beadle purred. We’re going home!

  Black Pierre didn’t even open his eyes. Good riddance.

  T’Hawthorn gave a little cough, and Cratag focused on him again. “What?”

  “It’s the afternoon of an annual event, a ritual by the Flair for the Arts of Druida organization. This year the rotation is at D’Marigold Residence.”

  Something he hadn’t known. Too bad. There was plenty he’d have to learn. He might not ever learn everything about Druida and city living that natives would know, but now he was one of them.

  So he’d be walking into a party. Better or worse?

  Signet hadn’t said a word, but she’d been busy, and, of course, the Residence would have had everything planned ahead of time and in order.

  “Thank you.” Cratag bowed, not as an underling to his lord, but as a man to his friend. “For all your good advice . . . Huathe.”

  Huathe T’Hawthorn smiled, and it was as tender as any he’d given Laev. “Thank you, Cratag. Visit. Often. And I’ll see you again at FirstFamilies Rituals.”