by Mima
She nodded. “So simple.”
“Yes. Rinse.” She straightened and bent over to put her face in the water, holding her breath as he worked the soap free.
After she stood up he went behind her and soaped her back gently. “The power of their watermages to keep this all flowing is amazing. Same as the magelights are lit by firemages, and the caves are maintained by earthmages. In my early testing it looks like I'm a firemage, but all warriors are trained in basic skills of all the magics. I've already learned so much. They were impressed with what Scuffle had taught me, but say it's very uneven.”
She took the soap from him and began to clean her lower body herself. He washed his hair, his back flexing.
He got another bar and also bathed. “The largest pool in the Owl caves has stairs. It's really much more convenient, especially for children, and women who are constantly wounded.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Chuckface,” she muttered darkly, but she smiled with her eyes.
After he had scrubbed his skin with the sandy stone, he vaulted himself out of the bath, water pouring from him as his shoulders flexed. He wrapped a towel around his waist. She held up her hands and he lifted her straight up until her knees cleared the edge and she knelt. He enveloped her in a huge soft towel.
They had bathed together always until they had moved apart after Vili. Water was very expensive and nearly everyone shared his or her bathing bowl with someone. She was surprised at how natural and smooth it went though. It had been years since they had last done this. Even when he was sleeping with her between lovers, they had continued to bathe apart.
He was combing her hair of its tangles to a sleek cap on her head when Freezha came in. He was dressed, KarRa was still in the towel. She stopped dead, staring in curiosity at the tableau.
“Did you bring me a pretty robe?”
Freezha held out her arm, which had a waterfall over it of some sort of orangey-brown color KarRa had never seen before. The fabric was silk on the outside, but it was lined with a soft fluffy thick wool. The inside was a dark red, also with a sense of brown. The shoulders of the robe were embroidered with a metallic copper leaf pattern. It was truly beautiful.
“Are you sure I can wear it?” asked KarRa when Freezha held it up.
Freezha just rolled her eyes and held it up. KarRa stood and shrugged out of the towel and into the robe. It wrapped around her like a cloud, and the heavy fabric gave her skin an odd shivery feel at its weight and softness. She tied the belt of braided copper and smoothed her hand over the vibrant silk.
“Thank you Freezha.” She smiled at her friend and glanced at Rylan. His eyes glittered with emotion, green seeping into his eyes.
“To see you dressed so… It makes me feel…” He blinked and his eyes were once again the light brown they appeared in the low light, where the sun did not pick up the golden glow. He cleared his throat.
KarRa nodded. “I feel in a dream myself half the time.”
Freezha beamed at them, her perfect beauty taking KarRa’s breath away for a moment. “I’m off to practice some of those dance moves you were sharing with me yesterday. I know today is the day I’m going to make Vyur fly like a Hawk!”
Freezha departed as they went to KarRa’s room. Rylan arranged them on the pallet and turned off the magelight with a thought. In the darkness, arms wrapped around each other, they rolled open the doors on their magepath. KarRa felt a physical relief, like a rush of peace at his mental touch.
“The days without you in the woods… It was bad. The scents and sounds would send me into this need to run, which of course I couldn’t do.”
“You were scared?”
“Yeah. Something big went by really close one night. But I was asleep so much, who knows what near miss I don’t even remember. Sometimes the need to run wasn’t from fear though. Sometimes… I just felt like I was coming home. Like I was close.”
“You like the Wild.”
“More than like. It’s like I can finally hear myself when I’m there. And watching the river, it was so incredible. Then I’d be staring at that beauty, at the same time wondering if you were dying somewhere alone, captured, raped…”
His voice had grown sharper and she squeezed his hand.
After a moment, he said, “The tall, black and tan Trux rose up out of the ground. He said, “Your offering is accepted. We will take you into our caves.” I knew they could hear my heart, it was pounding so hard with fear for you. “She’s not an offering. She’s a person. Where is she?” I asked. “Safe,” he says. “By whose standards?” “Yours, and ours.” “What will become of her?” “She will choose a mate and breed sons for our people. Breeding is our nature and need and can't be fought. Be still in your mind about her. We recognize and honor her. More will be shared later, when your Beast and spirit have been secured.” He was so cold, it seemed to me, so controlled. I felt like screaming, “WHERE'S KARRA?” I have to say when they sifted me into the caves, I was sick. I was furious when they told me you wouldn’t be coming. It just seemed so suspiciously convenient. Then this spiritmage came in and the Clan choosing started. By the time you came to me, I was so weak.
“You know what the first Change was like, and then… They told me you were simply in shock, and bleeding from a bad bloody nose. They said, “Nothing serious.” But I felt you on the inside. You’d gone so small. I was so scared.”
He hugged her tightly, burying his nose in her hair. “Praise the Six. You’re all right. You’re alive. You’re here. You did it, KarRa. You believed. You got us out, you got through, you proved a Clan for me. It was your strength that let me focus. I was one breath from being lost in the Owl, overwhelmed. You did all that, and then I wasn’t in any shape to know how to get the spirit-blighted doors open. I could feel you slipping away and I wanted to go too, even though I’d just found Owl. Only when they healed you did I feel my own strength begin to return.”
“It wasn’t such a life and death thing as all that, Ry. We were just tired.”
“Don’t. Don’t belittle what you did. With me so fucking useless. And you sit here and look at me and say you don’t think you’re part of my life. It’s enough to send me running in fear back into the Wild.”
“Well you’re not going to. You’re home now. You’re whole and you’re where you always should have been. It feels right doesn’t it?”
“I belong with the Owls. KarRa, they’re so strong. But they’re quieter, more introspective, than Scuffle’s rough group. Those Hawks, they’re just a bunch of hot-calling high Guild. The Owl is in me now. He’s in Grif, too, and Grif is his master. My Owl, he’s just under my skin, and that time I changed, it was like I was swallowed up. He liked being out. He wants out all the time.”
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s like a power just waiting to break free. Like he’s always waiting for the signal of the start of a race. Especially right now. Ever since I felt your pain, actually. The Owl’s really pulling at me, to meet you.”
“Then let’s meet.” She was breathless with anticipation.
KarRa reached out gently with her energy and they were both quiet as she met the Owl for the first time, on the mageplane. He was watchful. He seemed an endless well of patience, and at the same time, deadly energy ready to erupt. She tried to summon a visual image, from what she remembered at the bonding, and as soon as she looked into yellow gold eyes, she was swept forward into a mental landscape she'd never seen in Rylan before.
It was a much darker, shadowy forest. The great shape sat still in a wide spreading tree. The forest was alive, rustling with the wind, with energy and small moving creatures. She stood on the ground looking up at him and he considered her, bobbing his head. Wild energy prickled her skin in a rush and seemed to echo inside her. Finally he blinked and looked away, studying the movement of leaves in nearby brush. She had been accepted.
KarRa withdrew into herself until she was once again in her personal fog. “He's beautiful, Rylan.”
She took a breath. “You should have come here long ago. If it wasn’t for me…”
“No.” His hand came up and brushed her lips. “The past is done. We can only go forward.” His arms tightened reassuringly. “And we will go forward together. Grif helped me finally believe I belong with you. Here, it’s all different. Simpler. We can live out our own actions, but our paths really are entwined. I don’t have to stay away to prove your strength. It's as simple as knowing two ropes twisted together can hold more weight.”
Her stomach churned at these words. Words she didn’t understand coming from him. Words she’d ached to hear.
“Tell me everything. Did you run into anything in the Wild? How did they treat you when they first found you? Have you met any of the other warriors? What do you think of this place?”
She talked. She poured out every observation of her incredible journey. The days in the forest, the fears and near misses, the young Beast that found her, the testing, the proving, the agony of seeing him half dead before the adoption.
They talked on into the morning, sometimes stumbling over each other’s words, sometimes finishing each other’s sentences. He told her he already had a favorite child he ate breakfast with every day, Tam. He was an older brother whose mother was busy with a small infant, and whose father held a morning job. She shared her observations of her new friend Freezha, whose open spirit had pulled her right in.
He talked to her about his first flight in the Hawk Eyrie at the peak of the mountain—a great open room with many perches. It was where they could come and go in privacy. He talked of the thrill and how awkward he'd been. She told him of how her assigned tutor was the Domina of the Mountaincats.
He shared meeting the Council when he was officially adopted, and how his skin shivered at their combined power, even restrained. His voice became passionate when he described the bond he had with Grif—about how intimidating Grif was—yet how strong and wise. She heard the respect in Rylan's voice and swallowed a tart comment about her take on his wisdom, thinking of his cruel test of separation, how he told her Rylan wasn’t going to choose to stay in her life.
“I respect him so much. But sometimes I can't help this feeling of challenge that roars up in me. I feel like I want to rip his arms off. Like when I think about what he put you, us, through with this stupid delay.”
He was whispering now. “I owe him so much. I like him as a man, and my Owl trusts him absolutely. I want to please him—more than I ever did Scuffle.”
KarRa snorted. Rylan was always challenging and butting heads with Scuffle, but Scuffle was so harsh that most people did.
“I just need so much more control now. It’s like I’m half drunk, with my emotions all over.”
KarRa touched his shoulder softly. “All right. So you think you'll be a firemage? Doesn't that mean you'll see a lot of battles?”
Turning to hug her, he said lightly, “Let's let the future sleep. We'll wake it up as we go.”
They compared information they’d gleaned on the laws so far, and the structure of the Clans. His hours of training were longer than hers, going from dawn to past dark in this winter season. He had also spent several days wounded, recovering a day after the first Change.
He told her more about the scope of River Mountain, and what he’d heard of the Nest, clanhome to the Owls that was six days east. She shared the details of the awe she’d felt standing on the balcony.
Rylan explained that the Council had ruled the Clans for longer than the Kingdom of Seven Cities, for over two thousand years. He felt the peace that had held for generations was a measure of the success of the respect and control the Truxet fostered. The Council managed the mages, mage training, and the subcouncils. The Clans bowed to the Council’s rule for the sake of order, or chaos and war would result. “These men have discipline and honor. There are consequences for breaking the rules. I’m already starting to trust the people around me. It’s … confusing. To rely on strangers to be fair.”
She dared to say aloud the thought that had kept jabbing at her as she had watched the plaza. “We can be safe here.”
“Yes. After just a few days, I really believe it. Your voice is hoarse. Do you need some water?”
KarRa nodded. After he had brought it, she tried to continue their talk. “I want to hear about…”
“No more now, KarRa. You need to rest. I have to go back to my Clan. They'll have heard by now why I am not at lessons, but I just have so much to learn. I will come to you again soon and we'll talk more.”
“No more talk of keeping away from me?”
Rylan's face flexed as shame crossed it quickly. He said softly, “Never again. Not even should the Council Dom himself decree it.” He nuzzled her ear, humming, before reluctantly loping away. Her brain whispered, KarRylan. A darker, more sarcastic voice laughed from deep inside.
Later that day, Cro, Freezha, and KarRa sat on the balcony eating lunch. Freezha was delighted to tell Cro how Rylan had visited before dawn. Cro frowned and fussed at who had let him in. KarRa grew cross and snappish in defense.
Freezha cut in brightly, “I have news! I passed self-defense this morning!”
KarRa paused but when Freezha stuck her tongue out at her, she let her irritation seep away and praised her. When KarRa questioned Vyur's retaliation for the flip Freezha looked at her strangely.
“KarRa, he was happy for me. Actually, he doesn't ever look particularly happy. But I think he was relieved. That he wouldn't have to come up with yet another way to try to explain it to me. He gave the longest exhale after he landed from my flip. When he stood up he gave me a head nod. That's … well,” she blushed, “the highest compliment from him.”
KarRa was relieved that the warrior had the understanding to know that Freezha was a kitten among the Beasts and not to be harmed.
“Not that I'm ever going to be anything remotely like a fighter.” She gave a shy smile as she looked down. “He just stood there like a mountain the first time I tried to bring him down. I hung all over him trying to get him off balance. I climbed up onto his shoulders and he never even budged. When I started to tickle his ears he shifted his shoulder in this sliding way and all of a sudden I was upside down on my back on the mat. He looked down and said, “You must belong to the monkey Clan.” He had been so stern and cold, but with that one joke I knew he wasn't going to be, you know, a beast.”
KarRa was shocked to hear this tale after all the moaning and complaining about the mighty warrior. “Vyur?! Told a joke? Oh Freezha, I bet he likes you.”
Freezha blushed completely scarlet now. “Don't be ridiculous. He's Vyur, the combat champion. He’s like a prince here. Besides he's mated. I saw him with his son and mate one morning.”
Cro said, “Freezha, he is not mated, and has claimed no children.”
Freezha frowned and nibbled her lip, clearly surprised. “Oh, I thought—they just seemed like…” Finally she whispered, “He looked just like him.”
KarRa cleared her throat. “Well, they say that Lizzeed all look alike.”
Freezha was suddenly fierce. “Oh! What a thing to say! Like those young Wolves joking that it doesn't matter who their mate is since all women mate the same in the dark! That's an outrageous thing to say…”
KarRa laughed and held up her hands. “Freezha! Relax! It was a joke!”
Jaw dropping, eyes widening, Freezha gasped, “A joke? Could it-?! No! Not KarRa!”
“Keep it up pearl Guild. I’ll show you my own inner beast.”
Lunch ended with the group clean up, then Cro took KarRa to begin her lessons in Truxet law. The next entrance down the hall from the women’s caves was where they taught lessons. The walls were lined with shelves of books. There was only one other pair of women, and a chattering clutch of boys at the far end with their teacher.
Cro brought an enormous book over
to the small table. “How are you feeling?”
KarRa told the truth. “Like a skinned chuck.”
Cro shook her head and sighed, then opened the book. “The Truxet have really worked out a complete list of everything you need to know. It will take months. Level one should only take you a few days. That’s laws. Level two is a lot more complicated than level one. Eventually we'll cover Clan structure, family structure, sexuality, duties, celebrations, politics, economics, religion, social activities, councils, and history. Religion, art, history, and economics are all extended in lessons that you can pursue on your own when you reach level four. That's where your learning becomes deeper and you get to direct what you learn.
“Today we’ll check your reading and writing to see if we need to start there. Hopefully you’ll have enough to pass that. I haven't even really talked to you about magic yet. What is your element?”
KarRa shriveled from eager alertness to dismay.
Cro paused. “I know you were a thief. Were you able to sense mage traps?”
KarRa nodded slowly.
“Well, that doesn’t narrow much down does it? Anchored with earth, triggered by spirit or air, consequences of fire or body, neutralized by water…”
KarRa looked at her, surprised.
“I’m the Domina of Mountaincat. I know quite a lot about defenses. And there is a story of how you spirit sensed each of the men the Council spiritmage had approved for Rylan.”
“We called it proving. I can sense relationships both current and possible, also the intent of a person. It was one of the other jobs I held in the Dark. When I'm in a fight or on a snatch, working traps just happens. I can pass through barriers, see traps and how to stop or skip them. I can tell it’s not going to be a real useful talent here in Vladaya. These people don't even have doors for Wind's sake. I mean, they put all their treasure in a common room and share it.”
Cro interrupted. “That doesn't mean there aren't many places we could use your talent. In the Cities, and on the roads. We have enemies—in the wild and the Cities.”