Lost Truth

by Dawn Cook

  A tremor went through their shared body. “Tell me,” Beast demanded suddenly. “Tell me what love is. I’ll understand this time.”

  Alissa’s shoulders shifted in discouragement. How could she explain? It was a lifetime of memories, of feelings. Soft nuances, mixed with hopes and desires. Compassion, empathy. A willingness to trust absolutely with no regard for safety. Reckless abandonment. It wasn’t possible to simply tell her.

  “Show me how to trust the wind,” Alissa thought glumly, and she felt Beast falter.

  “I can’t,” her feral consciousness whispered. “You just do—or do not.”

  “And that’s what love is,” Alissa said, miserable. “You just do.”

  “Perhaps,” Beast said, sounding frightened. “Perhaps if we let our thoughts mingle as one, I could show you how I trust the wind. And you could show me love.”

  Alissa balked. “You mean like pickabacking?” she thought, and she felt Beast’s agreement. “Aren’t we already doing that?”

  “Yes,” Beast agreed. “But what if instead of sharing our thoughts we . . . let them mix?”

  Alarm went through Alissa. “Redal-Stan said not to. We might hate each other!”

  “I can’t hate you,” Beast said, sounding almost scornful. “I am you. You already know my thoughts and fears. I know yours. Where’s the risk in that?”

  Alissa’s fright eased. Let go completely? She didn’t know if she could.

  “I trust you,” Beast said, shaming Alissa into a hesitant agreement.

  Procrastinating, Alissa looked around her. Everything was as it should be. Her and Strell’s gear was jammed into the tiny shelves. The light flickered from the lamp to shift the shadows in time with the boat’s motion. Unreasonably cold in the balmy night, she pulled the covers around her. Beast patiently waited.

  Embarrassed at her hesitancy, Alissa snatched up a pillow. She clutched it between her broken hand and herself as she closed her eyes and took three breaths, willing herself into a light trance. A stab of anticipation shivered through them as Beast’s presence grew substantial in her thoughts. Alissa hadn’t been this acutely conscious of Beast in a long time. Fidgeting, Alissa lowered her defenses, feeling Beast do the same. A fear not hers washed through Alissa. Startled, she pulled back and opened her eyes.

  Beast grew impatient. “It’s only my fear,” Beast thought as Alissa glanced over the quiet room. “Taste it, then let it go.”

  “Taste it,” Alissa grumbled, cautiously allowing Beast’s fear to brush the edges of her awareness. Alissa let it seep through her as if she were slipping into a cold stream. Slowly their fears eased to permit more sophisticated emotions to flow between them—a wary anticipation from Alissa and an eager curiosity from Beast.

  Alissa’s pulse pounded. Fear was one of Beast’s rarer emotions. Her feral side was more inclined to wild states of enthusiasm. That Beast’s high passions might surge through Alissa as if they were her own was frightening. Her stomach clenched, and anticipation set her fingertips trembling. Again, she closed her eyes, allowing Beast’s eagerness to pull them unsettlingly deep within themselves. With a rash quickness, Alissa consigned herself completely to Beast’s thoughts.

  An unexpected, almost unbearable rise of feeling went through her, and she tensed. Beast’s emotions were stark and shockingly brutal in their strength, not having been couched with the self-imposed shackles of decorum Alissa bound herself with. She felt her lungs heave with a ragged gasp as Beast’s emotions poured through her like a raging torrent through a narrow pass.

  Stunned at the magnitude of Beast’s thoughts, it took Alissa a moment to realize Beast was afraid of losing the wind. Only now did Alissa see why Beast wouldn’t allow herself to be grounded. Beast truly lived to fly. Her joy was in motion. She existed for the now, and only for the now. She had little comprehension of tomorrow. It was both her strength and downfall.

  That is why she can’t understand love, Alissa realized with a surge of compassion. One had to have a grasp of the future—and the hope that springs from it—to understand love. A pang went through Alissa as she realized Beast would never understand. She couldn’t.

  “I can’t teach you, and you can’t teach me,” Alissa said, her sorrow weighing so heavily, she had to force her lungs to move.

  “Then we failed,” Beast whispered.

  Beast’s disappointment melted into Alissa’s, doubling it. It was almost crippling. “No!” Alissa exclaimed. “There has to be a way. We’re still separate. If we can become closer, then you’ll have to understand!”

  Refusing to give up, she dove into Beast’s thoughts. Wild emotion seemed to buffet her. Panicking, Alissa forced herself deeper into the passion and wild independence that made up Beast. Beast’s fierce desire to fly, her willful freedom, and the trust Beast held in the wind, all swept through Alissa—leaving her intact. It hadn’t worked.

  She couldn’t make the jump. Balancing on the cusp, she was unable to lose herself, to make their thoughts one. Bad things happened when she lost control of her will, and she was afraid to let go of herself, even for an instant.

  Alissa’s will collapsed in a disconsolate heap surrounded by Beast’s thoughts. They seemed strong compared to Alissa’s shallow emotions of self-pity. Disappointment coursed through Alissa, unshared by Beast. Alissa would have nothing, cursed with a half-life.

  “I can’t,” Alissa said, hopelessness filling her. “I can’t let go of my will.”

  “I can,” Beast said. “I do it every time I fly.”

  Alissa’s tension slammed back into her. “Beast? Wait!” she cried, seeing Beast’s intent. If Alissa couldn’t do it, then there was a reason. “It’s too close a mixing. I don’t think we will be able to separate again. It will kill you!”

  “But he said he loved me. I want to understand,” Beast said, and with no fear, no thought of tomorrow, Beast willfully, independently, and passionately, dissolved her being into Alissa’s.

  “No!” Alissa cried.

  Beast’s violent, chaotic thoughts blew out like a candle. Alissa stiffened as the black shadow from her absence seemed to pass through her. Silver and icy, it found the edges of her awareness and eased into the corners of her being. Alissa gasped in wonder as an unexpected longing to be free filled her. It was accompanied by a sublime confidence in knowing she was. The twin emotions rose to become everything. Still they multiplied until Alissa felt as if she was going to pass out. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t cry out.

  Then, as unexpectedly as they came, the wild emotions collapsed inward to something familiar she could exist with.

  Alissa took a shuddering breath, snapping out of her trance with a suddenness that left her shaking. A crushing heartache took her as she hunched gasping over her pillow. What had she done? Instead of finding understanding, she had destroyed Beast! The place where her feral consciousness had rested was empty. There were no thoughts in her mind but her own.

  Loss crashed over her, and Alissa curled in on the pillow still in her grip. Rocking back and forth, she shoved the pillow against her so no one would hear her cry. Beast was dead. It was her fault. She should have stopped her. With a bitter pain, Alissa realized Beast had understood love. She had understood it all along.

  “Alissa?” came Strell’s careful call from the other side of the door followed by a light tapping. “I brought us something to eat.”

  “Go away!” she said, hearing a hiccup. She turned to the wall as the door opened.

  “Oh, Alissa,” Strell said softly, his voice thick with compassion. “It’s all right. We’ll figure this out. And I was expecting it. You didn’t hurt me.” She heard a clatter as he set his plate of food down. It was followed by the sound of his hand slapping his middle. “See? Tight as a plainsman’s tent rope!”

  “I took her over,” Alissa sobbed. “Beast is gone. She wanted to understand love, and she killed herself to do it.”

  Strell’s breath came in a quick intake of understanding. For a heartbeat t
here was nothing, then Strell whispered, “Sh-h-h-h.” She felt the bed shift, and the last of her resolve melted as his arm went around her. The scent of hot sand was familiar and comforting. “Hush,” he soothed as she wept all the harder. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “It isn’t!” Alissa wailed. “She’s gone! I promised I’d never hurt her, and she’s gone!” Wiping her eyes, she hesitated. Her hands seemed wrong, but she couldn’t tell why. The one was broken, but that wasn’t it. Blinking the tears away, she looked up. The heat from the oil lamp streamed upward in a mist of blue, pooling at the top of the small cabin like bubbles under ice. The sound of the boat’s timbers groaning seemed louder but soothing.

  In wonder, she turned to Strell. Her breath caught. He was different: fiercely independent but stronger for having bound his independence with hers. She could see it so clearly it was a feature almost as much as his softly curling hair and his bent nose. He wasn’t trying to ground her, he was trying to free her. “Strell?” she questioned, afraid.

  He stiffened, pulling from her. “You sound like Beast,” he said.

  From the cradle his arms made about her, she searched her feelings, recognizing his acceptance of her—of everything about her—and that he loved her. And she understood what that love was. Her eyes closed as she heard the wind in the rigging. A keen pain went through her as she understood what the wind was, too. She hadn’t destroyed Beast. Beast had blended herself back into her. They were one. As they should have been before.

  “Alissa? It is you, isn’t it?” Strell questioned, and she met his eyes. His face went ashen. “Wolves,” he swore, tilting her chin so that the light fell upon her face. “Alissa. Your eyes . . . They’re gold!”

  41

  Lodesh stood on the dew-wet deck with the wheel in his grip. The boat was entirely in his hands as Talo-Toecan had yet to return, and the captain was still asleep. Connen-Neute and Silla were somewhere above the predawn fog having what a red-faced Connen-Neute had called “flying practice.” The sky might be clear far above them, but here, it was foggy. It made Lodesh uncomfortable—the thick, cloying gray. It seemed a personification of his awareness of what had been going on belowdecks.

  A frown, unusual and not welcome, passed over Lodesh. He had been at the wheel almost the entire night, part from crewing duties, part from personal preference. He didn’t want to be belowdecks. Not tonight. Perhaps never again. It had been a very quiet evening. Strell had emerged from his cabin shortly after he and Alissa had retired, claiming to be looking for something to eat. Even worse, he had come out again a few hours later looking for more. The reasons might be many, but Lodesh had a very uneasy feeling.

  Brow pinched, he looked to where Strell now sat against the mast with his back to Lodesh, his head slumped in sleep. He had appeared only a few moments ago, his nightshirt in disarray and his hair wild, blinking as if he had never seen fog before. The sun wasn’t up yet, and Strell was making tea. At least he had started tea, setting a pot of water over the tiny fire in the galley before stumbling out to fall asleep before the water warmed. Not good, Lodesh thought.

  Lodesh brushed the dew from his stubble as he flicked a gaze to the mouth of the galley hatch. Someone ought to take the pot off the flame before it boiled dry. He could use a bracing drink to throw off the damp that had settled into him. Where, he wondered, was Hayden?

  A gust of wind shifted his hair, and Lodesh looked through the lifting fog to the monstrous silhouette curving about the mast. Talo-Toecan. The Master was back. Lodesh shifted his grip on the wheel as the raku underwent an impossible landing, somersaulting to fall to an easy stance balanced on the railing as a man. The sails barely stirred.

  “Lodesh,” Talo-Toecan said softly in greeting, and Lodesh nodded. Padding across the deck in his slippers, Talo-Toecan eased himself down to the bench beside Lodesh. A sigh slipped from him as he arranged his Master’s vest about his knees. He seemed weary from more than a lack of sleep.

  “Are you all right?” Lodesh asked tentatively, guessing he had been to see Keribdis.

  Pulling his questioning gaze away from Strell sleeping against the mast, Talo-Toecan grimaced. “No,” he said shortly. “I won’t talk about it.”

  Fear jerked Lodesh straight. Keribdis would not be arriving at the Hold. Ever. He closed his eyes against the thought of what Talo-Toecan had done—had been required, had been forced—to do. From the depths of his soul, Lodesh knew he lacked the strength to hurt someone he loved. Not again. Once, standing atop his city’s walls, had been enough. Telling himself the pain would eventually be swallowed up by a greater joy was a lie.

  Unbidden, the memory of Kally’s upturned face—first tear-streaked and pleading, then lost in madness as she murdered her children—swam before him. He should have done something. Killed her in mercy as she asked before the madness caused her to tear her children apart and decorate the stones of his damned wall with their sundered limbs and insides.

  “Has he been there all night?” Talo-Toecan said softly.

  Lodesh jerked, remembering where he was. Taking a steadying breath, he followed the Master’s gaze to where Strell was slumped.

  “No.” The flatness of his voice surprised him. Hearing it, Talo-Toecan arched his white eyebrows. “He’s only been there long enough to boil his tea water,” Lodesh finished.

  Talo-Toecan made a noise of disbelief. “Alissa asleep at sunrise and the piper awake?”

  “Not awake,” he muttered, his eyes back on the thinning fog. “He’s asleep sitting up.”

  “Hm-m-m,” the Master murmured.

  A slow burn of worry went thorough him. It was not possible the piper could have managed to convince Beast to let him touch Alissa. She was feral. She wouldn’t allow it.

  Talo-Toecan broke his silence with a groan. “Let me take the wheel,” he grumbled as he stood, reaching for it. “Before our good captain docks my pay.”

  Lodesh’s hands fell away without thought. He took several numb steps backward, hesitated, then muttering, “Tea,” he went belowdecks. Intentionally missing the last step, he landed hard on the planking. Strell’s pot of water was steaming violently, and Lodesh moved it from the flames. Moving by rote, he listlessly made tea.

  The day brightened around him as the fog lifted and the fragrant leaves steeped. He fingered the notches Hayden had cut in the ceiling support, and the mind-jolting scent of tea shocked him from his apathy. “Tea,” he whispered decisively. “Alissa wants a cup of tea.” Suddenly smug that he was awake and Strell was asleep, he decided to finish Strell’s errand. Why was he assuming the worst? Strell was asleep on deck because of a fruitless night spent trying to convince Beast he was not going to hurt Alissa. And Alissa would undoubtedly appreciate an understanding set of ears after a frustrating night alone on her side of the bunk.

  Yes, he thought. He had planned everything to perfection. Nothing had changed.

  Feet shifting to the memory of a dance tune, Lodesh poured two brimming mugs of tea. He easily balanced against the boat’s motion as he made his way down the narrow aisle, dodging the packages the Masters had wanted them to ferry back. The ceiling gradually lowered as he reached the bow. Almost hunched, he tapped at the door with his foot.

  “Alissa?” he called softly. “I have tea.” Heart light, he waited, hearing nothing.

  Wedging one cup out of the way among the clutter surrounding the door, he knocked before easing the door open. He poked his head around the frame to find her slumped asleep among her pillows and blankets. Smiling, he set their cups down where they wouldn’t spill. Eager to wake her, Lodesh came closer. His smile slowly faded.

  Alissa’s hair lay strewn across her pillow, not hiding her faint smile. An arm lay carelessly tossed, bare to the shoulder. She slept peacefully, content, smiling as she recalled a memory he would never share with her.

  Lodesh went cold at the sudden wash of truth. Throat closing, he stood frozen, unable to take his eyes from her grace. The piper has won, he thought, shocked
to find he could even think it. Somehow he had won her. His eyes traced the pale, lissome angle of her arm to find the copper ring loose upon her broken finger. Another man’s wife, he thought, his chest clenching, dreaming dreams of Strell. His breath came in a quick rush, and he frantically backed out of the room. Almost unaware, he shut the door. How could he have been so blind?

  He would never have her as his love, he thought. She loved Strell. Even when the plainsman died, she would love him. And though she might choose to be with Lodesh, perhaps even take his name when she learned to live with her loss, Lodesh knew when she smiled she would be thinking of Strell. And that’s the way it would be, whether Alissa lived for a hundred years or a thousand.

  Grief shook him. Unseeing, he stumbled down the aisle. He had put his trust in the belief that time would work for him, and now he had lost. Lost it all. Lost everything.

  Lodesh found the galley bright with sun and busy with Hayden making breakfast. Connen-Neute and Silla were clustered together at the long table, laughing about her improving flight skills and their unexpected swim when Captain Sholan refused to drop the jib so they could land on the boat.

  Not meeting their eyes, Lodesh retreated to the deck, not caring he left an uncomfortable silence behind. The sun had burned away the fog, and the morning was hot. His body cried out to run, but there was nowhere to go. Talo-Toecan stood silently watching him from the wheel. Alissa lay in slumber in the bow. Strell slumped against the mast, sleeping.

  Strell, he thought, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached and his pulse hammered.

  The sudden hush he left in the galley seemed to mock him as he made his slow, sure way across the sloping deck toward the plainsman. He would sit with Strell for a moment.