He opened his eyes, saw a pretty rug on gleaming wood. Memory spun just out of reach.
Someone rolled him to his back and he stared up into wide green eyes set in a fierce face. The woman looked like someone he should know. She stuck her fingers into his dry mouth, opened it, shoved an oxygen bulb between his lips and squeezed.
Incredible air. Wonderful air. His mind cleared a bit. He still didn’t know who she was, but he recognized Glyssa’s bedroom.
Shouldn’t Glyssa be close? Where was she? He needed her.
“Breathe!” someone shouted to his left. There came a tiny sound, then the stench of foxy piss, definitely not Glyssa.
Glyssa? The little call speared excruciating pain in his head. A tiny moan, also not Glyssa. Lepid? Jace slowly formed the Fam’s name in his head.
“We’re here,” said a woman’s voice from a distance. “We’re taking the Fams immediately.” A small woman and a large young man ran in, cast shadows on him but didn’t look at him, then darted from the room.
Another thump on Jace’s chest, the bulb replaced. He’d caught his breath, hadn’t he? Stopped breathing again.
Lepid was here, but where was Glyssa? More fear swept through him. Zem! Zem should have been strapped on his chest.
Why?
He shut his eyes, but shuddered at the darkness behind him. Fear of the dark clawed and snapped and ate at him.
Opening his eyelids he saw the sunlight, blessed light from Bel, felt as if he’d been reborn from an alien and cold dark to this wonderful room. The Healer was wiping him with a warm cloth, taking strange smelling grime from his face.
The ship! Lugh’s Spear. The terrible risk of teleportation.
He’d made it!
But had the others? GLYSSA! he screamed mentally, hurting his own head. He couldn’t feel their bond, fumbled for it. Closed his eyes again to find all the bonds he had, saw nothing. Not to Lepid, not to Zem, not to Glyssa.
She could have died. HeartBound people did, and the remaining spouse died within the year. He wouldn’t linger if she was gone . . . just let the darkness take him, not fight against death and cycling on the wheel of stars until his next life . . . and no one could guarantee that they’d meet and love again in their next lives. Maybe she’d like someone else better.
Stup! He should have cherished her more, spent more time with her, acknowledged their bond instead of being careless and selfish for so long.
The Healer moved close with another bulb. “Glyssa,” he said. She frowned as if she hadn’t heard him. Everything took so much effort.
“Glyssa!” he yelled. Her name came out as the barest hoarse whisper.
A mask slipped over the Healer’s face, and he knew that was bad.
“Glyssa has been transported to Primary HealingHall and is being tended by FirstLevel Healer Lark Holly.”
For sure, bad.
“Want . . . there,” he said.
Frowning, the Healer bent close to his lips.
“Want. To. Go. To. Her,” he said, once again using up all his strength. Lord and Lady knew how long it would take to regain regular energy and Flair, weeks, months, years?
“I’m not sure that would be good for either of you.”
“HeartMates, HeartBound!”
“Oh!” She looked into the other room. “Can you come help me get GentleSir Bayrum into a glider?” With an anti-grav spell, she raised his body. “We’ve all decided that teleporting you is not a good idea.”
He shuddered, rippling in the air, a very weird sensation. A big tough-looking guy came in. “Remove the spell, I’ll carry him.”
Jace grimaced.
“I don’t think so, Garrett, he’s not breathing well on his own. No putting him over your shoulder. I want him flat.”
“Zem?” Jace managed before she stuck another bulb in his mouth and watched with narrowed eyes as it went in and out as he breathed.
“Your Fams are with Danith D’Ash and her son.”
He should have known that, hadn’t he heard them? What was wrong with him? He sucked harder on the bulb.
“You’ll be fine,” the Healer said.
He wasn’t sure of that, and when he bumped against the stairway rail and blackness overcame him again, he screamed into the darkness before it gobbled him.
* * *
Jace awoke sometime later, disgusted with himself. He’d never been afraid of the dark. He’d always been excited by going down into Lugh’s Spear. Granted, the last few septhours trapped there had not been fun. Or even good. But they’d been manageable. Even taking the risk to die fast instead of slow had been okay.
He didn’t know when he’d get the nerve to teleport again.
A groan escaped him and he tried to open his eyes. Footsteps bustled up to him and gently wiped his eyelids with a warm softleaf. His eyes must have crusted over, then, and why now? Why not when he awoke the first time? Had he wept, had stuff leaked out of his eyes due to fear? Had he bled?
But he pried his lashes open to look around. Still felt like moving a mountain to turn his head. He was in the richest room he’d ever experienced in his life—some sort of tapestry-type curtains of deep green and light blue shimmered. The chairs and counters were of a solid, gleaming dark wood. He lay on an excellent bedsponge and atop him draped a soft cover. But his senses weren’t so dull that he didn’t know a HealingHall room when he was in one.
Slowly, moving in tiny increments, he straightened his head, turned it toward the right.
And saw Glyssa. He jolted, adrenaline rushed into his body and it managed to jacknife him up.
“Easy,” said the Healer, bracing his upper arms with her hands.
“I should know you,” he replied. Still sounded terrible, but the words came out at a reasonable pace and loudness.
She smiled, more than just a Healer’s smile, something personal for him. “Artemisia Primross, I’m the sister to Tiana Mugwort, one of Glyssa’s best friends.”
Instead of grunting again, he nodded. The fog was clearing from his mind. Probably meant he didn’t have brain damage, always a plus.
Glyssa appeared completely still, her expressive face immobile. On the far side of the bed a pump stood, with large tentacles, pressing her chest evenly. Her lips were barely open. He couldn’t tell whether she breathed on her own or not.
“Is she all right? What’s wrong with her?” He leaned forward, but his legs weren’t working right. Artemisia easily kept him from leaving the examination table.
“Mostly exhaustion, the same as with you and your Fams.”
“The Fams, are they all right?”
“I haven’t heard from D’Ash.”
“Can you scry and ask her?”
Artemisia hesitated, and he got the impression that she didn’t want to hear any bad news, either.
“Glyssa is okay?” he pressed.
“I—we— . . . She should live.”
His heart pounded. May as well ask. “Will she have brain damage?”
Artemisia pursed her lips. “The preeminent mind-Healer scanned both of you and is optimistic that we Healed enough of the damage that the brain itself will continue to work with the spells that we placed.”
Ouch. Didn’t sound good.
Artemisia met his eyes. “It doesn’t seem as if the ritual we did for you helped much.”
“I didn’t realize you were there.”
She nodded. “I was, many were.”
Blowing out a breath, he said, “I didn’t feel you, but Glyssa was mostly in charge of the teleportation. She should be able to tell you more about that.”
“I understand. Just to let you know, there will be more than one nobleman or noblelady to question you about the whole matter of this extreme teleportation.”
Jace managed to lift shaky hands to his head, run them through his hair. His scalp itched as if it was covered in dried sweat.
“When will Glyssa wake up?” he asked. She would wake up. He wouldn’t let doubt seep into his cracked mind
, creep into his fearful heart.
“We’re not sure,” Artemisia said.
The door opened and the tough guy walked in, this time Jace could put a name to him. “Garrett Primross.”
“I scried the Ashes, like you asked,” he said, confirming that Jace had been under observation somehow. Was Primary HealingHall an intelligent structure? Not quite, he thought, so it wasn’t the building spying on him. One of the walls must be fake, a window covered by an illusion to the occupants.
Voice tight, he asked, “How are our Fams?”
“Much like you two. They both live. The fox is better off than the hawkcel.”
“Zem.” Jace’s heart squeezed. He looked at an immobile Glyssa, raised his voice. “Glyssa, come on, wake up for me, darling.”
He stared at Garrett, lifted an arm slowly. “Help get me over there.”
The man grimaced and strode over, set his arm around Jace’s upper body and Jace’s arm around his shoulders.
Praying his feet would work, Jace accepted help down to the floor. He could barely feel the pressure against his soles. His knees were weak.
Garrett said nothing as they shuffled extremely slowly toward Glyssa. Neither did the Healer.
There came an exclamation from someone who opened the door while Jace was on the long trip of five paces, but until the Licorice Family moved into his vision, he had no idea who’d entered.
Fasic T’Licorice came to Jace’s other side and offered support, and the inching along went on. Jace was surprised by the two men. Neither pushed him, neither seemed impatient. Not like he would have been. He’d have also wanted to leave the room as soon as possible.
Finally the trio of them reached Glyssa’s bedside. Artemisia waved Garrett away, and gave Jace another oxygen bulb. He breathed a while and prayed that his energy and Flair and regular strength would recover, refused to entertain the thought that he’d be dragging himself around the rest of his life. His shortened life, he was sure, if he didn’t recuperate.
Artemisia helped him prop himself against the bed so he could stand. Glyssa’s father went to the top of the bedsponge. Her mother joined her HeartMate.
“Hey, baby,” T’Licorice said, stroking back a bouncy strand of her hair.
An idea wormed its way through Jace’s head. He lowered the bulb and cleared his throat. “Sir, Lady, do you have bonds with Glyssa? I can’t feel mine.” He made sure he didn’t sound pitiful.
The older Licorices joined hands, gazed at each other.
“I can feel her, faintly,” said her sister, probably at the end of the bed. It took Jace a minute to turn his head, he was using all his energy to stand and hold the oxygen bulb back up to his mouth. Her face showed dried tearstains and raw nostrils. As he watched, she pulled a softleaf from her large, formal sleeve and wiped her nose, then blew it.
“I have a bond with my youngest child,” said D’Licorice. “Again, it is faint, but it is there.” She blew out a breath. “She lives.”
By the time Jace got his head swiveled in their direction, T’Licorice had his lips pressed together, met Jace’s stare with torment in his eyes. “I have faith the bond will return as she gets stronger.” His sigh was heavy and he shook his head. “I took part in the emergency ritual. With the high priestess there we raised a great deal of Flair. We—I did not feel my daughter tap into that energy for your ordeal.”
The man’s gaze got bluer as his face paled. “You two—”
“Four,” Jace corrected.
T’Licorice dipped his head. “Four. You four did it all on your own. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
“We had to,” Jace said. He held out the bulb to Artemisia and his fingers barely shook. Progress? He hoped so. After the Healer took the breath support object, Jace leaned forward and kissed Glyssa on the mouth, swept his tongue over her lips to taste her, let her taste him, thrust the tip of it at her teeth. Her mouth opened and she inhaled audibly.
“Very good!” Artemisia said. The Healer stood by the chest pump, sharp gaze on Glyssa.
Jace straightened, took her limp, warm fingers in his left hand, stroked her cheek with his right hand. “Time to wake up, Glyssa, HeartMate.”
Her sister gasped a second before his lover did. The pump automatically stopped and removed itself from the bedsponge, trundling into the corner.
“Open your eyes, HeartMate mine, my Glyssa,” Jace said, then added, “People are waiting on you. I’m waiting on you.”
Breath sighing out on a long groan, Glyssa did, touched her tongue to her lips. Her mouth formed the word, “Dry.”
“She needs water here,” Jace said, altered his body so it looked like he leaned insouciantly against her bedsponge, not that he was propped against it.
Artemisia hurried up with a coarsely woven folded softleaf with a corner that looked like it held orange juice. Glyssa’s parents propped up her shoulders. Her eyes opened, but her gaze didn’t shift. Jace knew what that was all about.
“You’re really tired,” he said. “I am, too.”
Again he read her lips. “Lep-id?”
“The Fams are at the Ashes, being treated like we are.”
Her lips showed the tiniest trace of a pout.
“Glad to see you back,” her father said gruffly. He bent and kissed her forehead.
“Back,” whispered Glyssa.
Jace went weak, swallowed. “Move her over and help me up.”
Garret was there and T’Licorice, helping him, while Artemisia and Glyssa’s sister shifted her. Her wavery moan wrenched at him, but not enough that he stopped the action he wanted.
Even when he was helped onto his side to look at her, no embarrassment touched him. Only gratitude and triumph that they’d succeeded.
The door opened. “The Fams insisted we return so they can be with their companions,” announced the young Gwydion Ash. He settled Zem—Jace could smell his bird—close to Jace’s head.
A very thin and scruffy-haired Lepid was placed near Glyssa. Jace wondered if he looked so bad. He supposed so.
“HeartMate,” he said, and moved his hand to touch Glyssa. Then he fell asleep.
This time he thought they’d all wake up.
Forty-one
A week passed and Jace, Glyssa, and the Fams were recovering. The Elecampanes had shown up a few days after Jace’s and Glyssa’s ordeal and told them what had happened at camp—how they’d found Trago dead at the bottom of a cliff, and how they’d brought in a barracks for the Holly guards for the upcoming winter. They’d already closed the camp.
Raz and Del had brought Glyssa’s file no-times and the materials Jace had left in the workshop tent. He’d turned over the brooch to Del D’Elecampane and Lepid and the older fox, Shunuk, had had a session where Lepid had told Shunuk of his various caches that held antiquities.
As for the brooch, Del had consulted with the great jeweler, T’Ash, and the starship Nuada’s Sword and the piece was called a cameo and probably originated on old Earth, not the ship. A great find. They’d determined that the room Lepid and Jace had been trapped in had belonged to a female lieutenant who had survived the landing and the long trek to Druida City and had founded a GrandHouse that had since died out.
The AllCouncils of Celta had voted to establish a museum for the Lugh’s Spear artifacts, hired Antenn Blackthorn-Moss to design it, and had purchased the cameo for an outrageous sum that put a good amount in each member of the crew’s pockets. As Jace had speculated, the cameo had sparked a new fashion craze. Laev T’Hawthorn had been the first to commission one of Camellia from T’Ash.
Glyssa’s friends were often in D’Licorice Residence and soon Jace considered them like younger sisters, sometimes annoying, but often just thinking of the Family he’d acquired filled him with warmth. So had meeting with a banker regarding the middling inheritance his father had left.
That afternoon Jace sat with Glyssa on his lap in the main library of D’Licorice Residence, being “debriefed.” Both Laev and Camellia Hawthor
n were there, along with a bunch of lords and ladies and the Elecampanes.
A large Fam bed was set near the fire and held a small fox curled around a hawkcel, Lepid and Zem.
“Glyssa thinks my Flair manifests as passive luck, especially with regard to near-fatal events,” Jace said.
“Luck!” Del D’Elecampane frowned at him.
“Hmm,” Laev said, with a gleam in his eye. “Maybe I should take you on as a partner in a couple of my riskier ventures.” He turned his purple gaze to Del. “Face it, if any other of your staff had gone down into that ship and died—something we think was masterminded by a Druidan noble working with the late and unlamented Trago, and we will find him or her—this project would be considered cursed for generations.”
He waved a hand. “There are plenty of other interesting expeditions and explorations and places nearer to Druida City and Gael City to build communities that people would have preferred to go to instead of the excavation of Lugh’s Spear.”
“But Jace went down, and he’s HeartBound with Glyssa,” Camellia pointed out. “And she is a determined person . . . and Trago could have been a whole lot more efficient with those explosives of his. He didn’t really want to kill anyone except Jace, and you had no casualties in camp.”
“That’s because after the first explosion, everyone scattered into the countryside except the guards,” Raz said. He squeezed Del’s hand. “Good call on those Hollys. They all survived, too, and I don’t think Trago would have cared if one or more had died.”
“The bottom line is that the project is still viable, you have a very tight camp community that is motivated to work with you,” Laev said.
Del was nodding. “More, we have the basis of a town, and we’ll be getting materials for permanent housing sent soon. This will be our last winter here in Druida City and Verde Valley. In the spring we will get back to work on the camp and on the town.”
“That will give us plenty of time to plan,” Jace said.
“You’re definitely coming?” Jace had never seen Del’s face light up so, she was usually serious. A warm feeling welled that he’d pleased her. He liked her. That emotions were coming back inside him was something to celebrate, too.
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