The Quest for the Heart Orb (The Orbs of Rathira)

by Laura Jo Phillips

  Karma greeted the men politely and spoke with them for a few moments. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will let you have your meeting.” The men bowed as she gestured to Lashi, who got up and followed her into the tent.

  “We need to get busy packing, Lashi,” Karma said. “The day is half gone, and we leave in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry, Lady Techu,” Lashi said. “This period of rest has given us time to finish sewing winter clothing, make some necessary repairs, and put several fresh coats of weatherproofing on the tents. That will make a big difference if we must travel through rain and snow.”

  “That’s good to know,” Karma said. “Will it be too much trouble to prepare for travel by morning?”

  “Not at all, Lady Techu,” Lashi assured her.

  “You’re such a blessing, Lashi,” Karma said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Thank you, Lady Techu,” Lashi said, pleased. “May I speak freely for a moment?”

  “Of course,” Karma said. “You can always speak freely with me.”

  “Then may I say that had I a daughter, I would have her be like you,” Lashi said.

  “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, Lashi,” Karma said, blinking back tears. “Thank you.”

  Lashi nodded, though she found it impossible to hide her smile. She took a deep breath. “I better get started. Oh, perhaps I should inform Caral so that she can begin readying Princess Kapia’s things. And Lady Tiari will need help as well.”

  “Caral cannot do for Kapia, Tiari, and Ren all on her own,” Karma said. “Would you mind continuing to help her out? I wouldn’t ask, but there is no one else. And I’ll speak to the other women. None of us will mind doing a few things for ourselves.”

  Lashi’s eyes widened, then narrowed, her chin going up stubbornly. “Excuse me, my Lady, but it would be unseemly for either you or Princess Kapia to do chores. I’d never be able to hold my head up again were I to allow such a thing to occur. It would be nearly as bad for Lady Tiari and Hara Ren. They are Orb Maidens, regardless of their birth or upbringing.”

  “What do you propose we do then?” Karma asked, hiding her smile at Lashi’s quiet outrage.

  “My duties for you are lessened greatly because Timon does so much, which has left me free to help Caral in the women’s tent,” she said. “If we can have one of the youngsters among the drovers help with setting up the cots and trunks at the end of each day, collect firewood and draw water, that would help a great deal.”

  “Excellent idea, Lashi,” Karma said. “I will speak with Caral and then ask Timon to make arrangements for the extra help.”

  “Thank you, Lady Techu,” Lashi said with a deep bow. She watched Karma leave the tent, then set to work.

  ***

  Ren walked away from the diplo paddock with Kapia, pleased with her introduction to the large beasts. They looked frightening with their long fang-like tusks and strange, leathery hides, but they seemed to be as gentle as Karma, Kapia, and Tiari had told her. With Kapia’s help, and the drover’s, she’d chosen a black one with white spots scattered all over its hide, and liquid black eyes that reminded her of Marl, though she would never have admitted that to anyone.

  Now they were making their way back to where the huts were, and Ren found she was more relaxed than she’d been in a long time. And hungry. The stress of the past weeks had stolen her appetite, but it was back now, and with a vengeance.

  “Roesa?”

  Ren stopped in her tracks, startled to hear her mother’s name. A man stood a few yards away, staring at her with unfeigned shock. He was very tall, and appeared to be older than the other men she’d seen wandering about with gray at his temples and deep lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. He took a step forward, then stopped, his frown deepening. “You cannot be Roesa,” he said. “It’s not possible.”

  “Roesa was my mother’s name,” she said. “Did you know her?”

  “Was?” he asked, coming another step closer. “She no longer lives?”

  “No,” Ren replied, shaking her head slowly. “She died many years ago.”

  The man’s expression grew sad, and for a moment Ren thought she saw tears in his eyes. Then he blinked several times and took a deep breath.

  “May I ask, who are you?”

  “I am Garundel,” he said, his eyes now fixed on hers.

  It took every scrap of will Ren possessed to keep her expression from changing, to hide the sudden wave of conflicting emotions that flooded her. She counted silently to ten, then took a deep steadying breath before she spoke.

  “I have something that Roesa asked me to give to you, Sir Garundel, if I were ever to meet you,” she said. “I don’t have it with me at the moment.”

  “What did Roesa tell you of me?”

  “Not very much,” Ren said, dropping her gaze to the ground as she narrowly avoided telling an outright lie. “I was but six when she died.”

  She peeked up in time to see Garundel nod, though his face was now as unreadable as stone. He came another step closer, then stopped again, no more than a few feet away from her now. “You are…Ren, Maiden of the Heart Orb.” Ren heard the hesitation and bit her tongue to keep her curiosity in check.

  “I am,” she said, raising her eyes again determinedly.

  A distant shout caught Garundel’s attention and he looked back over his shoulder for a moment, then turned back to her with a frustrated sigh. “I must tend to my duties, Hara Ren. May I speak with you another time?”

  “Of course,” Ren said, nearly choking on the words. She wanted nothing more than to refuse, but that would surely raise questions she had no wish to answer.

  “She’s staying with me tonight, Sir Garundel,” Kapia said, startling Ren. She’d almost forgotten she was there. “We’ll share the women’s tent while we travel.”

  “Thank you, Highness,” Garundel said, bowing. “Until later, then, Hara Ren.”

  Ren nodded, but Garundel had already turned and begun walking away. She stood stiffly as she watched him, struggling to accept the singular fact that, unexpectedly, inexplicably, unimaginably, she’d just met her father.

  “Come, Ren,” Kapia urged gently. “Let’s go get cleaned up for dinner.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, turning with Kapia and blindly following where she lead. Thankfully, Kapia did not ask any questions as she guided her back to the house and showed her into the room that would be hers for the night. Ren sat on the edge of the cot that either Caral or Lashi had made up for her, waiting for the shock to dissipate. When her pulse stopped pounding in her neck and wrists so fast that she couldn’t count it, she stood up and looked around the room. She spotted her pack leaning against the wall and went to it. There was a leather pouch tied to a loop inside the pack with a series of special knots that she worked free with trembling fingers. The pouch was as wide as her hand and just as long, and contained a thin, flat metal box that she’d felt for years, but never actually seen.

  The pouch had once had a drawstring opening, and hung from her mother’s belt. One of Ren’s clearest memories was of watching her mother sew the opening of the pouch shut in the faint light of a small campfire. When the pouch was sealed, Ren had solemnly promised that she would give it to her father, Garundel. If he did not come for her before her twenty first birthday, the contents of the pouch would belong to her, and she could open it.

  Ren couldn’t count the number of times she’d held the pouch in her hands, just as she was now, trying to guess what it held. An unexpected wave of resentment suddenly rose inside of her. She’d kept this package safe for fifteen long years. Long lonely years. Now, when she was on the verge of reaching the age when she could finally open it and satisfy her curiosity, she had to hand it over to a complete stranger.

  Yes, she knew his name, and yes, she knew he was the man who’d fathered her, but that didn’t make him any less of a stranger. She sighed as she slipped the pouch into her pocket.
She would give it to him, as she’d promised her mother. But she would not tell him that he was her father.

  ***

  “Will you walk with me, Bredon?” Kapia asked after dinner. Ren had been quiet all evening and excused herself early, and Caral was in Kapia’s room preparing for the next day, so they were alone for once. But Kapia wanted to be certain that no one could overhear what she wanted to say, so a walk seemed the best choice.

  “Of course,” Bredon said, rising to his feet and holding a hand out to help her up. She took it, smiling up at his familiar green eyes, his thick red hair shining like a flame in the candlelight. The warmth of the afternoon was long gone, so they pulled on their gloves, and accepted their cloaks from Caral. Bredon buttoned hers securely beneath her chin and raised her hood before opening the door. They walked side by side in companionable silence as they crossed the settlement in the waning light. Kapia led the way between two oversized Argiari houses and up a sharp rise to a grove of trees overlooking the settlement. They sat on an old log that she’d used whenever she wanted to get away and be alone with her thoughts during their stay on the Hidden Sister. It was private in the sense that no one was nearby, but they were still in sight of the guards below.

  Bredon took her gloved hand in his and she sighed, feeling the warmth of his hand even through the leather of his gloves, and the wool of hers. “Is there something you wished to speak of, Kapia?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, then released it. She would not allow a sudden case of nerves stop her from saying what was on her mind. “A few days ago, when you first returned and we kissed…,” she began. Bredon interrupted.

  “I know I got carried away, Kapia, and I apologize. My only excuse is that I hadn’t seen you for so long. Please forgive me. I promise, I will never….”

  “Stop,” Kapia said abruptly before he could finish his promise. “I don’t want you to apologize, Bredon, and I certainly don’t want you to promise not to do it again.”

  Bredon looked at her in surprise. Then his brow furrowed. “You…liked it?”

  “Of course I did,” Kapia said, rolling her eyes. “Didn’t you?”

  “More than you can know,” he replied. Then he shook his head. “But we cannot let it happen again, Kapia.”

  “Why not?” she asked, surprised. Then, her face fell. “You don’t approve of me liking it, do you?”

  Bredon’s hand tightened on hers and he turned slightly to face her. “Kapia my love, please take my word for it when I tell you that the pleasure I experienced in kissing you like that, and holding your body against mine, was second only to your passionate response.” Bredon paused, closing his eyes for a moment as a shiver ran through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. He took a deep, calming breath, and continued. “It was too pleasurable, I’m afraid. It could so easily lead to…other things. Things that are properly meant to occur only between husband and wife. I wish I could tell you that I had enough control to never go further than we did, but I cannot, in truth, make that promise. You are too tempting, and I want you far too much.” He swallowed hard at the thought. “I know that this is not a proper subject for one as innocent as you, so I beg you to please trust me in this. We cannot allow that to happen again. A chaste kiss now and then, certainly, but no more.”

  Kapia was relieved. At least Bredon seemed to want her as she wanted him. She couldn’t do anything about them not being married. It was for the man to ask, not the woman. It wasn’t even proper for her to raise the subject. But, if her lack of knowledge was the only impediment to them discussing the subject of kisses, she could at least fix that. “I am not as innocent as you think, Bredon,” she said, smiling. Bredon’s face instantly darkened, his brows lowering like thunderclouds over eyes that were suddenly icy cold.

  “Explain,” he demanded. He’d released her hand and when she looked down she saw that his fists, now resting on his knees, were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

  “Why are you angry?” she asked.

  “Kapia,” he growled warningly.

  Kapia frowned, but did as he asked. “When Tiari asked Karma to explain the secrets of relations between men and women to her, I asked to be included. Marene was supposed to have done it years ago, but she never did. Karma agreed, and taught us both what we needed to know.”

  “And?” Bredon demanded.

  “And…what?” Kapia asked, confused. “I was shocked and, I admit, horrified at first. But when Karma asked me to think of you in the context of what she’d told us, well, my opinion changed.”

  “Just tell me, Kapia,” Bredon said impatiently. “Tell me who he is.”

  “Who?” she asked blankly. Then, all of a sudden, she understood. Her own fists clenched as she glared back at Bredon and spoke furiously. “You think that I would…with another man? How dare you?!” She stood up and stomped away in order to keep from slapping him for the insult. She’d only gone a few steps before Bredon’s strong arms wrapped around her, bringing her to a stop and trapping her arms at her sides.

  “I apologize, Kapia,” he said into her ear. “When you said you were no longer innocent, I assumed you meant something quite different.”

  “How could you think that?” Her anger slipped away, leaving behind the underlying hurt.

  “I swear, I never thought that,” Bredon said. “I just misunderstood your meaning. Please, come back and sit with me. We must finish this discussion, and if I continue holding you like this, it will lead to places we cannot go.”

  Kapia sighed, enjoying the feel of his body against her, his arms around her, but she nodded her agreement and let him guide her back to the log. They sat back down, and he took both of her hands in his once more.

  “So you have learned the secrets of sex,” Bredon said bluntly.

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “Of course not, surna,” he replied. “It’s a relief, actually. It helps that you know of what I speak when I tell you that we cannot let ourselves get too excited.”

  Kapia nodded. Now they’d come to the reason she’d asked him out here in the first place. “Bredon, before you left we’d held hands, shared a few of those chaste kisses you mentioned, spoke of loving each other and of one day, in the future, marrying. I felt…things…when I was with you. Physical sensations that I didn’t understand, and had no knowledge of. It was confusing, but also exciting. And then you were gone.

  “On top of the worry and the fear, I felt so much regret for all the things we didn’t do. The time we didn’t spend together. The conversations we didn’t have. All the times I could have told you that I love you, or held hands with you, or just smiled at you.” Bredon squeezed her hands gently. He’d had the same regrets, and understood her perfectly.

  “After Karma’s personal talk with me and Tiari, my regrets grew. The more I knew, the more I had to regret.” Kapia’s expression become fierce. “I never want to regret like that again, Bredon.”

  “I’m sorry it was so difficult for you, Kapia,” he said. “If it helps, I had the same regrets, and it was no easier for me than it was for you.”

  “Knowing you suffered as I did does not make me feel better, Bredon. But there is something that will help.”

  “Which is?”

  “Give me memories instead,” she said, looking unflinchingly into his eyes.

  “Memories?”

  “Karma said that there are ways to express…affection…without going too far,” Kapia said. “I do not know what she meant by that exactly, but I suspect that you do.”

  “I’m surprised that Karma mentioned…that subject,” Bredon said.

  “Tiari and Tomas were in love, and engaged, but she had to remain a maiden until after she claimed the orb,” Kapia explained. “Karma said that embarrassment is a small price to pay for important knowledge, and I agree with her.”

  “In that case, I’m impressed with Karma’s practicality,” Bredon said. Kapia continued to look at him, and he knew she was waiting for his ans
wer. He sighed, and gave it. “Yes, I know what she meant, but I don’t know if I can trust myself to stop when we’re supposed to. I’ve wanted you for so long, Kapia.”

  Kapia wanted to tell him that she didn’t care. She even went so far as to open her mouth, the words right there on the tip of her tongue. But she held them back. She could see that she’d already shocked him enough. He was very conscious of her reputation, and his own, as was right. She did not want him to think badly of her. But neither could she give up this second chance they’d been given.

  “Let me give this some thought, Kapia,” Bredon said. “I want memories too, believe me. I can’t begin to tell you how much. But this is a big step and needs careful thought. Will you allow me time to think this over?”

  “Of course, Bredon,” Kapia agreed, hiding her disappointment. “But please, do not think too long. Each day, each hour, each minute, could be our last together. It’s a lesson I learned all too well.”

  “As did I, surna,” Bredon said, raising their hands together so that he could kiss the backs of her gloves. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead.

  Kapia closed her eyes, drinking in the warm softness of his lips, wanting so much more. But she would wait. She’d give him the time to think that he’d asked for. And then she’d decide what to do next.

  ***

  Zakiel spent the afternoon and evening with his men, helping to identify and solve last minute problems as everyone prepared to resume travelling after their long rest. It was well after dark by the time he returned to the dwelling he shared with Karma, and he was both tired and hungry. He’d sent word hours earlier for her to eat without him and go to bed early, so he was surprised to find her waiting for him, with Nikura at her side.

  “I thought you’d be asleep,” he said, kneeling down to kiss her before taking his cushion. “Are you well?”

  “Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” Karma said, then fell silent while Timon served Zakiel his dinner.

  “Why are you up so late?” Zakiel asked when Timon moved away. “We’ll start early in the morning, and you need your rest.”