Ronan chuckled and lifted the pack from my shoulders. “We’re inside now. Pretend like you’re in the most solid, grounded house you’ve ever been in.”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Try, Dri. Try. It looks like we’ve found a refuge in enemy territory, and I, for one, could use a night’s sleep.”
“Me too.” I took his hand and looked up into his face. “How is that wound, Ronan?” I asked, gesturing to his belly.
“Oh, not as bad as all that,” he said. “Come.” He led me forward, holding my hand. And it felt so good to touch him that I had no choice but to follow. Not if I didn’t want to tear my hand away …
We inhaled the scent of fresh-hewn lumber. Then we walked around the circumference of the giant tree, the bark on one side, open windows on the far side. There was a small shower — with a tank warming in the afternoon sun above us — three hammocks, and two small chairs beside a table laden with bread and nuts. We each took up a small round of bread and ate, swallowing as fast as we could. Then a handful of nuts — an odd, curving shape. I didn’t know what kind they were; I only knew they tasted delicious.
A girl knocked at the door, clothing in her hands. “Chaza’el thinks these will fit you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, taking them from her small hands. She pranced down the bridge away from me, not even grasping hold of the ropes on either side. I shivered and pushed shut the door, then turned to look at Ronan, and past him, to the treetops outside the window. Suddenly, I felt like I was back in the Valley with him, somehow, and that Mom and Dad were within reach. That Niero might be nearby, watching over us.
I swallowed hard, feeling foolish. But I couldn’t stop the tears.
“Dri? Hey, what’s this?” he asked, coming close, then cradling me in his arms. I leaned against his chest, and the tears came faster as he stroked my back and hair.
“I just … for a moment … It’s all been a little much, you know?” I said with a breathy laugh.
“A guy doesn’t have to be an empath to agree. It’s all been a lot much. You’ve done well, Dri. So well. It will be okay. Somehow, it will all be okay. In time.”
I hugged him close. “You think we’ll see Niero again? And the others?”
“I do,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head. It made me smile, both his hope and his tenderness. After a while, my tears ended.
“Now go on, take a shower,” he said. “It’ll make you feel better. Just don’t take all the water.”
“Agreed,” I said, hurrying forward. I closed the curtain behind me and quickly stripped out of my clothes, covered in dirt and stains, and out of my underthings. I looked up to the rope, attached to the bucket above me, half closed my eyes, and pulled slowly, experimenting. The mouth of the bucket opened wider, dousing me with a steady stream of lukewarm water. I let it shut and took a bar of soap, thick with the scent of pine, lathering from top to bottom, working quickly, given the goosebumps spreading across my skin. I thought longingly of the warm pool in Wadi Qelt, then got angry at myself for thinking of anything pleasant at all in that place.
And it led me back to thinking of our Ailith kin. Were any still trapped there? Prisoners now? Had any escaped? Been hurt? Niero …
I thought of Chaza’el’s words about his dead knight, and shivered over more than cold, wet skin. Gently, I pulled the handle and rinsed off. The water and suds ran down the wooden slats beneath my feet and out through tiny holes at the base of the tree. I reached for a rough cloth on a peg outside the curtain and quickly dried off, then peered out carefully to reach for my clothes. Ronan was not in sight.
I yanked the soft doeskin downward and over my body. It was almost a dress, with sleeves that curved over my shoulders and reached my elbows and a hem that stopped mid-thigh. I pulled aside the curtain, feeling shy, as I looked for pants that must go with it. There. I unfolded the soft fabric to discover it was a skirt that wrapped around and tied at the side, and slid it around my waist.
“Ronan?” I called as I finished the knot. “You can take yours now.”
He was rounding the corner as I said it, and stopped short when he saw me as I smoothed the top back over my hips. His reaction set my heart hammering in my chest. He seemed to remember himself, how he was supposed to be acting even if he was feeling otherwise, and hurriedly moved past me. “Saved me some water, did you?”
“Did my best,” I said, handing him a towel, then reached for a wide-toothed comb fashioned from some sort of bone and began to work out the tangles. He hovered, his hand on the curtain, as if intent on getting on with his shower, but I could feel his eyes on me. I smiled, finding rest, distraction in his emotions. Joy at being this close to me. Sharing a rare private moment. Knowing he loved me. And I loved him.
It was a delicious little secret. The worst kind of secret. The most forbidden kind of secret. And all the better because of it.
He stared at me and I lifted my eyes to stare back, then looked to the windows, knowing we were being too obvious. But then here, on the outskirts of the tree house village, there was no one looking in. Our view stretched a hundred miles, over hills and plains, fields and forest. There were no eyes possibly watching us, for the first time in … almost ever.
I wondered again what it would be like to kiss him. To be held by a man who loved me, who would die for me. He’d held me before, but not for long, when I knew he wanted to kiss me. Touch me.
We were blessed.
We were doomed.
When he finished his shower, dressed in his own soft doeskin pants, I turned toward him. His long, dark hair still dripped down his chest, and one lock fell over his right brow and cheek. He was pulling on a shirt, but it clung and crumpled on his wet skin.
The spreading bruise at his belly gave me something to focus on in my sudden nervousness. “Oh, Ronan,” I said, frowning, moving toward him. I looked down at it, reached out to touch it, but he grabbed hold of my hand.
“No, Dri. Don’t.”
“It hurts that bad, your wound?” I asked, pretending I didn’t understand the real reason for his reticence. Chattering, nervous. “Do you have a broken rib?”
“It’s fine,” he muttered, still holding my wrist, his eyes intent on mine. “A few days and it’ll be fine.”
“It doesn’t look fine. Maybe Chaza’el has a healer here — ”
“Dri,” he said, his tone tortured. My name was like a lament on his lips. “We can’t do this.” He dropped my wrist as if it burned him.
“Can’t we?” I whispered, refusing to move away from him.
What are you saying, Dri? I wanted to shake myself for being an idiot. For hoping that it might be possible, despite the odds. And staring into his eyes, the color of a mossy river bank in deep shadow … I felt a surge of hope within him too.
Ronan stepped forward, so close now he could wrap his arms around me. His feelings were so intense, it was almost as if he was … But he wasn’t. He just stood there, looking utterly torn. Overwhelmed. Full of both need and fear, as conflicted as Keallach had been.
“I was so scared back there,” he whispered, his voice raspy. “I’ve been so scared, all along, that something would happen to you.” He lifted a hand to touch my cheek. “If anything happened to you, Dri, if I was the cause …”
“But you won’t,” I said, staring back at him. “You would never hurt me. Ronan, how could love ever hurt either of us?”
I was delirious, falling from one possibility to the next. There was something perfect about us falling in love. In a way, we always had been, since the first day I laid eyes on his secretive smile and easy mannerisms that so seemed to fill and fit my own. Our trainer had practically told us to fall in love when he told two stubborn, independent thinkers that we could never, ever do such a thing. It only made us want to find a method to surmount what he deemed insurmountable obstacles. To prove him wrong. To prove love right.
I made myself turn to step away, feeling everything he was, but doubly — both
his desire and my own. Both his guilt and my own. But he reached forward and caught my hip and I turned back, half terrified, half glad.
He pulled me close then — fierce, fast — raw masculine power, and stared down at me in both pain and pleasure. “Andriana,” he whispered, his breath labored. “What are we doing?”
“What we should’ve been doing all along,” I said, looking up at him.
He frowned down at me, his breath still ragged as he wound his fingers in my hair, searching my face as if he couldn’t believe I was real. “The Maker hasn’t answered my prayers.”
“No?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head a little and reaching down to pull me closer. “I asked him to take it away. My desire for you. For me to love you, but not love you.”
I slid my arms up and around his neck. “Oh, Ronan. Don’t you think … don’t you think that this is a sort of answered prayer? Love? Like ours?”
He leaned in, nuzzling close, his breath warm on my face. Sweet. “Is that what you think?” he asked, his lips brushing mine with the barest touch.
“I think,” I said, lifting up on my tiptoes to bridge the gap.
He kissed me then. Carefully, so agonizingly careful. Then, as the minutes wore on, harder, more urgent. He pulled away but I followed, kissing him, demanding he return to me, having waited so long for this … so, so long.
He complied for a while, drawing my body close, then pulled his head back and stroked my cheek, searching my face as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of me, as if he couldn’t believe what we were experiencing was real. “What have we done?” he whispered, his voice raw, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip, swollen from his kisses. “Andriana, what have we done?”
“What we couldn’t not do,” I said. “I was always yours, Ronan. Always. I love you.”
“I love you too. Maker help me, I love you Andriana, with everything in me.” He bent to kiss my forehead, my cheeks. Then finally, my lips again, for a long moment. He pulled back and his eyes opened wide. “It’s impossibly fantastic, love. And excruciating too. I feel as if I’ve been turned inside-out.”
I smiled back at him. “Me too. Believe me. Twice over.” I settled against him, resting my head against his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his pulse, the rise and fall of his chest. I had the craziest desire to stay right there, in that tree house, and wish the world away. “I wish we’d been born somewhere else,” I said. “To other parents. In another time. When we could just be. Together. Be in love.”
He paused. “I don’t.” He pulled slightly away and cradled my face in his big hands, his eyes holding so much love that they filled with tears of intensity again. “This is where we were meant to be, Andriana. Here. Now. If we’d been elsewhere we might have missed us. No matter what comes, no matter what happens, Dri, know that I wouldn’t have ever traded this moment for anything.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, lost in the intensity, the relief, the admission.
“I wouldn’t have traded it either, Ronan,” I said at last, tears dripping down my face. I wasn’t sure why I cried. Because I feared that this was all we’d get? A stolen moment? Or because it was so perfect, our final admission of love, when we’d worked so hard to avoid it?
I decided love was like that. Utterly perfect, no matter when, where or how it rose.
Or how forbidden and impossible it might be.
CHAPTER
33
Chaza’el had the gift of visions. Foresight as well, to a certain extent, though his visions and foresight seemed to be in bits and pieces. He indeed shared our crescent moon marking on the right hip, and already knew of Kapriel and Keallach being Ailith brothers. When the others in his village saw our markings, they clapped and laughed in wonder.
“What of the other Ailith?” I asked, trying not to sound as desperate as I felt. “Have you seen them? Will we be reunited soon?”
Chaza’el’s brown eyes connected with mine and he gave his head a sorrowful shake. “All the Maker has given me is a vision of us all together, and I’m not even certain where we were.”
We described each one of the Ailith — Tressa’s red hair and blue eyes; Killian’s blond dreadlocks; Vidar’s dark and stocky appearance; Bellona’s tough persona and long braid. And Raniero’s tall, broad-shoulders, his sparkling black eyes.
Chaza’el rose and walked to the fire, staring into the flames. “All those except the one you call Raniero.”
I swallowed hard, remembering him behind us, swarmed, surrounded by our enemy. And we had left him, abandoned him. We had to find him, be reunited, especially if we were to go after Kapriel on Catal —
“Dri, he told us to,” Ronan said, taking my hand in his. “He told us to.”
“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “But I can’t help wondering …”
“No. If we had stayed, fought beside him, we might not be here either.” He lifted his hand to gesture to Chaza’el. “Clearly, the Maker wanted us to escape so we could find our brother. Right?”
“Right,” I muttered. I could not deny the utter peace of us being here. But my heart also wondered after the man who had sent us here, to the mountains to the West. What would happen to us without him? Our leader? I looked over at Chaza’el, and thought about his armband. He needed it, needed the ceremony. He already had the gift, but if we were able to complete his entry into the Ailith fold, how much more powerful would he become? We needed every ounce of his ability on our side. But did we need Niero to do that?
“Do you think …” I began, looking to Ronan. “Do you think it’s possible for an Ailith to take his armband without all the other Ailith with them?”
Ronan’s keen eyes searched mine and widened in understanding. He looked to the fire and then shook his head. “I don’t think so. There is something holy, even sacred, in those bondings. I think the other Ailith kin had to be present for the gift to fully … breathe.”
“What do you think his gift really is?” Ronan asked me. “Keallach? I didn’t see him use any in battle, or before, did you? Wouldn’t that have been a good time to move objects, to stop us?”
“He has powers we haven’t seen in anyone else,” Chaza’el said, his eyes dull, his face slack. He looked up and around at all of us as we held our breath. “But they are held in check without the cuff.”
“Miraculous powers?” I pressed, forcing the words out.
“Power like none other. What I’ve seen …” Chaza’el said, lifting his round face to the trees. He shook his head, as if he just didn’t have it in him to continue. And we were too weary from the battle to press him. There would be time enough to come to terms with his gifting.
We were all silent for a while.
“What if,” Ronan began slowly. “What if those monks captured one of the Ailith?” He swallowed hard. “What if Keallach gets his armband?”
“I think he needs us,” I said. “For the ceremony. It’s as you said. The cuff probably wouldn’t adhere, his gifts won’t mature, without Community about him. Without the Ailith. Without the Maker’s blessing.”
“Which is good,” Ronan said dully, poking at the fire, “and really bad. Because if he needs us …”
“Chaza’el saw us all. Every one of us, except Niero, in that vision. Keallach won’t have an armband if we can help it, right?”
He nodded, then we moved on, finding comfort and distraction in telling Chaza’el of every step of our journey, everything we could think of to help bring him up to date with us, hoping the knowledge would feed his comprehension of what was to come. The fire had burned down to embers, and our words were coming out slurred, we were so weary, when Chaza’el looked with compassion at us. “My friends, it is enough. You must sleep. You will be safe in the tree houses this night, with us on watch, so slumber without fear.”
I rose on legs that felt weak and followed Ronan and our brother out of the cave, trailed by the others in silence. Across the bridge, the people separated, all going to d
ifferent homes among the boughs and branches. After we were across, the bridge that extended between the side of the mountain and the first giant tree was lowered and drawn up for the night, a form of drawbridge over a “moat” that was nothing but a hundred foot drop.
“We have been safe here for over a century,” Chaza’el said, putting a calming hand on my shoulder. “No enemy has scaled this mountain or come near our village for five decades. And if they do, our people are skilled at hunting. No word of our existence has escaped. Ever. We are like ghost people. The Pacificans fear us as such, spreading tales over the generations, and therefore shy away from our mountains.”
I smiled as he waggled his eyebrows. He saw us to our own tree house, and promised to wake us in the morning — earlier if he heard any word about Raniero, or any of our Ailith kin. His brown eyes moved between me and Ronan, clearly seeing something we could not, then he nodded his good night.
Ronan shut the door and I turned toward the first hammock, then back to him. I hurried into his arms, and for a long time we clung to each other, not kissing, just holding the other. He rubbed my back, and we breathed in unison, simply enjoying being together. But I was so, so weary.
He seemed to sense it, and bent down and picked me up in his arms. Then he carried me to the first hammock and settled me gently inside it. He reached for a soft skin blanket and covered me with it, kissing me slowly, gently on the forehead. “Good night, Dri.”
“Good night, my love,” I whispered.
And with a devilish smile over the surge of emotion I felt back from him, I curled up and promptly went to sleep.
We awakened to bird calls through the trees, and Chaza’el burst through the door without knocking. “Rise!” he cried. “They’re here!” He disappeared, leaving the door open.
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