Thabean’s smile vanished as his eyes met hers.
She pressed his hand to her breast. “If the Council find us out, they’ll kill you.”
Mist steamed out of the forest. In the south, a storm wove orange and pinks in bows of light. An avio flapped out of the sun’s glare, sailed across the landscape of greens and blues and gold, and settled into the canopy.
“We all die, my lady.” He touched her arm, and the electric longing of the symbionts razzed along her nerves. “Bethniel of Narath, will you have me?”
All the hairs on her arms stood on end. She nodded, and their mouths met across a gulf like a bridge. Black fire blinded her, drove her into his arms, sucking her into an abyss like the deepest corner of the sea, drowning her in flame and pressure. She pulled at his tunic, but it was too slow, too slow. She wished it gone, and it shredded away. Her own garments shrank to nothing. Pressed arm to arm, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, they floated in the bower, the heat engulfing them, soldering them into one.
Afterward, lying quietly together, Bethniel listened to his heartbeat and wondered whether it followed hers, or hers followed it. She was sorry it was over, happy it was done. Her belly warm, she sighed, thinking about marriage—that she was married now too.
He cleared his throat. “In Latha, they say the Weavers do not lie together without marriage, and that in lying together, they marry.”
Grinning, she rested her chin on his chest. “It is the custom in all Latha now. I know we can’t declare—that means, announce publicly that we’ve wed.”
He kissed the crown of her head. “I declare to you, dear, that you are my wife . . . That’s not a phrase I ever expected to hear myself say, even before I took the Elixir.”
“Lucky for me you never met the right woman.”
“Lucky for me I did. But you had never courted another?”
She shrugged. “Courted? Yes. Lain with, no. Half the young people of Narath have trysted without declaring, but I didn’t want Elesendar to bring me back as some sort of promiscuous vermin, like a harrier.”
He stroked her cheek. “Do you really believe that nonsense?”
Rising on an elbow, she mocked a scowl. “The husband of Latha’s Heir cannot be a heretic! We shall have to convert you, sir.”
A sardonic smile bloomed and melted as he traced a finger along her hairline. She shivered at the electric thrill, and he hugged her to his shoulder.
They lay in silence. Drowsy, she imbibed the moment, inhaling humus and blossoms, sweat and musk. His scent was a heady mixture of earth and herbs, and salt and sweet vinegar, warm and comforting. A breeze caressed her skin. Prickling leaves crinkled as she sank toward sleep, lulled by the lapping water below.
* * *
Orange clouds streaked a lavender sky. Bethniel sat up, peered through the bower at the empty pool, scanned the canopy. Where was he? Below, thickly tangled branches bore long, vicious thorns, followed by a long, empty drop to the ground. She wanted to call his name, but fear stopped her—of discovery or that he’d abandoned her, she wasn’t sure. Casting about for her clothes, she remembered they had disappeared—literally evaporated. A laugh bubbled up and quashed the fear. She was naked at the top of a towering behemoth of a tree, with no way down. “They’ll find my skeleton here,” she mumbled, half-serious. “Bleached from the sun, and they’ll wonder what in Shrine a woman was doing up here by herself.”
Pleasure rippled along her skin as she remembered what she had been doing, and she giggled. He wouldn’t leave her here. He had probably gone to get them clothes. He had certainly gone to get them clothes. She wondered how he would explain his own nudity when he got back to camp, or if he would be able to slip into his tent unnoticed. More than once she had found herself surprised by wizards appearing in rooms she thought were empty. Wineyll could spin illusions by altering what people believed they saw. Could wizards manipulate matter and light to make themselves invisible? That would be useful.
The air cooled while she waited, the threads of clouds thickening as the sky darkened. She hoped he’d return before it rained, wondered what could possibly be keeping him. How long could it take for a wizard to fly to camp, grab some clothing, and come back? Likely he was asked by Fainend to examine something or sought out Vic to assure her there was nothing to worry about. Likely both, or a Council meeting could have been called. Or the camp could have been attacked—and this might be the battle in which Thabean Graystone died.
Valiant Thabean
Right hand of Saelbeneth
Dead in honor
Mourned in glory
Forge on the Council.
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “Not yet. Not yet.” The Caldera tribe had said he was the Sacrifice. He would die to save the forest. He could not die without meaning, in some random battle. Surely the momentous events that would lead to his demise were not now occurring. She was the Fulcrum! She would need to be present for events to turn around her. Unless this was the act, the turning point, and she had fulfilled her destiny. Could this have been it? No—her blood churned with panic. No, of course not. He could not die now, without her near! She had to get back to camp. Heart thudding, she crawled to the edge of the bower and swung herself into the tangle of branches below. Tough round thorns dug into her feet and hands, scratched at her face and shoulders as she wormed her way through, but she thought only of reaching him before he was gone.
The gloaming deepened to full dark, and she could not see her way through the tangle. Branches snagged her, trapped her. She could not go down or up. Gritting her teeth, she wedged her arms through the thorns and found a gap. Spikes raked her breasts and flanks as she squeezed through, but fear blunted the fire of ripped flesh. She had to reach him. The bough began to taper and bend beneath her weight. Rain splattered into the canopy. Heavy drops struck her skin, and a deluge hammered through the leaves and branches. The air black, the bough creaked and snapped.
Her hands clawed through empty darkness, her yelp bouncing off hidden trunks. She crashed into a thicket of spindle ferns; the brush broke her fall, but she still landed hard. Groaning, she rolled onto hands and knees and sobbed. Where was he? How could he just leave her?
Anger burbled through worry, and she cursed him in one breath and prayed for him in the next. Shrine, she was alone, naked, and only the old mothers knew how far from camp. How would she get back without being seen, and how in Elesendar’s name would she explain this to Vic?
A shadow parted from the underbrush. “Forgive me.”
Air gushed from her lungs. “Where did you go?”
He held out a pack. “For clothing. I hoped to return before you woke. I’m sorry.”
She looked up at the black tangle through which she’d fallen. “I thought there might have been a battle.”
Wincing, he pressed the bag into her hands. “I’m sorry. You’re hurt.” A ball of light rolled out of the air, illuminating the forest like a tiny sun. “My dear,” he touched a scratch on her face. “Why did you try to climb down?”
“You were gone so long, I thought you’d been killed.” Tears gushed. He pulled her forehead to his, whispering more apologies. Submitting to relief, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed the crown of his head. His lips caressed the cuts and scrapes, and tiny electric bursts followed his touch, as if the Woern hungered for their kind in him. Everywhere his mouth touched, cuts knitted together and scrapes healed. Lifting her with the power, he turned her around, kissed her back, her thighs, her shins, and finally the bottoms of her feet. When he put her down, he took off his shirt. “Now, shall we at last have that swim?”
“In the rain?”
“Afraid of getting wet?” He slipped out of his trousers and ran toward the water. His skin was pale under the bobbing globe, but his buttocks and thighs were roped with muscle. Diving smoothly, he surfaced and beckoned her to join him.
Giggling, she scrambled to the shore and leapt, her body slicing into the tepid
water. As she surfaced, she realized the aches from the fall were gone. “How did you do that? I feel wonderful! I thought all wizards did was manipulate matter and energy. How can you heal?”
Treading water, he grinned. “Are you not made of matter and energy?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“And power too, madam.”
“What?”
His legs entwined with hers, but a poke in her belly made her titter and draw away. “That tickles.”
Grip firm on her backside, he tugged her to him. His mouth crept along her throat, and blood and fire rushed to meet his lips. Embracing, they floated effortlessly, their legs braided together. “Who is keeping us from drowning now, madam?”
Every nerve tingling, she said, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not using my Woern, and neither of us is exerting any physical effort to stay afloat.”
“You’re not suggesting . . .”
“I am, my love. All hail to Bethniel, last of the inherited wizards.”
* * *
Back aching, Vic shifted a pillow and adjusted her weight against the chair. Her stomach growled, and she stuffed a piece of stew-soaked bread into her mouth. Hunger scratched and mewled like a wet cat down a well. “Damn, kid, you can eat,” she muttered around another mouthful. The baby kicked and tossed, his elbow pressing on her spine. She patted her belly. “I suppose I can’t keep calling you kid.” What name would Ashel choose? Lathans and Oreseekers alike named their children for lost loved ones. Sashal? Vic had loved the warmhearted king who had welcomed her into his family and cared for her as his own, but Sashal’s death had been gruesome and intimate, and she couldn’t ask Ashel to cradle a son named for a father whose lifeblood had soaked his skin.
“Joseph,” she said. “How about that name? It was my grandfather’s.”
Setting aside the empty stew bowl, she hoisted herself out of the chair. Shrine, you’re five months, not eight. Nowhere big enough to require hoisting. But a year was two hundred and twenty-three days long, and babies were born in just over eight months. At five months, the kid—Joseph—was two-thirds of the way cooked, and cooked was how she felt. She was more tired than that time she’d chased a Relman patrol for three days straight, eating on the move, never sleeping, pausing only for the latrine, and hardly long enough for that.
She stumbled through her bedtime ablutions and extinguished the lights. The sun had set only a short time ago; it was too early for bed, but a massive yawn stretched her jaws. Perhaps nearly possessing a squadron of soldiers had taken its toll; she felt as if she could sleep a week, yet when she lay back, she tossed and turned. She was so weary she couldn’t muster the energy for sleep.
Fabric shifted. Feet shuffled. “Vic?” Bethniel whispered in mindspeech, her silent voice eerie in the dark. “Are you awake?”
Groaning, Vic shaped a light globe. “Where have you been all day? I asked Fainend, and he said Thabean had sent you on an errand, but he wouldn’t say where, and then I couldn’t find Thabean . . .” Her mind leapt onto possibility, and she jerked up, her heart pounding hard, as if Meylnara stood in the doorway. “Shrine’s bitch, you weren’t together, were you?”
Bethniel edged closer. She wore a fine, bronze-colored silk that fell from her shoulders in soft waves, but her hair was a damp tangle, snarled with bits of leaves. Joy and consternation warred across her features—eyes alight, mouth tilting upward, eyebrows creased and forehead furrowed.
“Oh, Beth.”
The princess collapsed and sobbed into the pillow. Foreboding and sorrow pressed on Vic’s shoulders as she smoothed Bethniel’s hair and listened to her recite a list of dire predictions. There was the doom the Kragnashians had demanded they fulfill, and the simpler, human consequences of broken laws and forbidden acts. “If the Council find out, they’ll kill him.”
Vic rubbed her shoulders. “We will find a way around this. The Kragnashians brought us here to change history—we’ll save the trees, and we’ll save him too.”
Bethniel scrubbed her cheeks. “The Sacrifice will have to be made, one way or another.” She chortled ruefully. “As if we didn’t have enough problems, there’s something else.” Her hands clasped in her lap, she looked intently at the table. The spoon rose slowly out of Vic’s bowl and wobbled toward them. Aghast, Vic let it fall into her palms.
Bethniel sighed. “Now there are two of us outside the Council’s law.”
Vic grabbed her foster sister’s hand. A lively electricity met her grasp as living Woern raced toward each other. “How?”
“It triggered when Thabean and I . . . he said that’s why the penalty for violating the vow of chastity is death.”
“Holy Shrine, Beth.” A laugh broke through Vic’s shock. “Well, that ballad wasn’t completely made up: Thabean did have a lover who was a wizard. I think he’ll rather like being called ‘your Majesty’ when he’s consort to the Ruler of Latha.”
Bethniel shook her head. “I’ll have to step aside as Heir and join you in Mora.” Her mouth quirked. “I wonder if Thabean would like steed ranching.”
“Ashel loves those things. We could all keep a herd together.”
“Except Thabean’s going to die,” Beth said, tears brimming again.
Vic clasped her shoulders. “Not if I can help it. There has got to be a way to dispatch that woman without killing the trees or anyone else. I promise you, Beth, I will find it, and we will all go home.”
The princess nodded, and they lay down together. Forehead to forehead, they whispered of the future long past the time for bed.
Part Three
Personal Log, Captain Franklin T. J. Wong, United Mineral Mining Vessel, Registry LSNDR2237, January 5, 2154
Ornithology. Craig keeps talking about ornithology—the study of birds, not Charlie Parker. Ever since Craig drank that stuff the indigenous gave him, he’s been acting strange. I’ll catch him alone in a room, and he’ll be looking like the cat that got the cream half the time, and the other half, he’s sweating and throwing up in the trash bin. The last time I found him hanging over the bowl in the head, he asked me what I knew about ornithology. I told him biology was his department. He nodded and started talking about woodpeckers. They live in family groups with a dominant mating pair, and all the other woodpeckers in the group devote themselves to making sure the dominant pair’s eggs survive. The subordinate birds might not ever breed themselves, but their genetic code was still getting passed on through the dominant siblings.
What the hell does this have to with us? I asked him.
He smiled. Sometimes, he said, an individual has to sacrifice himself for the good of the group. Then, water rained down from the ceiling, and he laughed like a maniac.
I ordered maintenance to check the pipes in the head—there must be a leak, or condensation, or something. But Craig . . . he needs to see the doc. The strain’s getting to him.
Trick of Fate
Vic started awake.
“You’d better come.” Prenlin’s hand gripped her shoulder. The Healer’s hair was awry, her eyes wet. “They’ve arrested Lady Bethniel. Sir Thabean can’t be found.”
Dawn glowed through the open tent flap; a week had passed since the night Bethniel came to her with news she was wedded and empowered. “What happened?”
“Saelbeneth’s put her under arrest.”
Vic scrambled out of bed, dressed, and rushed to Thabean’s command tent, where Fainend stood surrounded by Samovael and half a dozen Council guards.
“Sir Thabean often patrols at dawn,” Fainend told the others. His eyes flicked to Vic. “Good morning, madam.”
“A grave crime has been committed,” Samovael said. “Have you any idea how your sister obtained the Elixir?”
“What?”
Samovael’s scowl deepened. “Lady Bethniel, madam. She has the Woern, just as you do.”
“Where is she now?”
“In Grunnaire’s custody.”
>
Vic shoved down the fear clogging her throat. “Thabean’s out patrolling?” she asked Fainend.
“He can be nowhere else, madam.”
“What do you want with him, Samovael?”
“To inform him, of course.”
“I’ll find him. I’ll tell him. I promise.”
Outside, she hesitated between Grunnaire’s camp and going straight to Thabean. As long as she’s not in Nelchior’s hands, she’ll be all right. Hurtling skyward, she flew toward Meylnara’s keep and the surveillance blind. A week since the marriage—a week of secret consummations and plans for a future together in . . . the future. They’d been so careful in their worry that someone might discover the affair, Vic wondered if they’d forgotten to hide Bethniel’s newfound power.
Sensing Thabean’s waveform, Vic beelined toward him, slowing as she approached the outcropping where she and Saelbeneth had talked. Thabean faced west, watching the sun rise and doing very little with the Woern. Only the color of his boots shifted from brown to black and back again.
He smiled, inclining his head toward the red globe. “A beautiful dawn, is it not?”
“What are you doing?”
“Resting, madam. Enjoying the time I have left.”
Very gently, Vic laid her hand on his arm. “The Council has arrested Bethniel for illegally taking the Elixir. She’s in Grunnaire’s custody.”
He flinched, then gave her a grave look. “The same crime for which you’ve been pardoned.”
“Reprieved,” Vic said. “Bethniel is not a soldier. She won’t be useful to the Council. I think someone must have found out about your marriage—”
“How is it that you know, madam?”
Her grip on his arm tightened. They didn’t have time for stupid questions. “She’s my sister—did you think she wouldn’t tell me? Nelchior has been stalking her. If he thought anything happened between you, he could have arranged this to bait you.”
She had been prepared to restrain him, but he only laughed softly, bitterly. “It is exactly what Nelchior would do.” He stood. “Shall we head back?”
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