by Неизвестный
He stood waiting; his face twisted in what could only be pity.
"I was beginning to worry that I'd scared you away again."His lips twisted into a sad smile. "If you think I'm rushing things, I can try to slow down a bit."
"I knew it."She recognized rejection when she heard it. "One look at the real me and you're not interested."She brushed by him, hoping he wouldn't notice how she struggled to keep her voice even.
"Not interested! What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about this."She swept her arms away from her sides. "I'm not thin anymore."
"Of course you're not thin. Where is all this coming from?"
"Look at me."Her voice broke. "Can't you see the difference? Last night I was beautiful, and tonight I'm--"
"Even more beautiful,"he finished for her. "I don't know why you're so upset. Sit down for a minute and we can--Where are you going?
She headed for the door. "Home."
"Amber, wait!"
She was already out the apartment and heading for her car. How dare he lie to her. She saw the evidence in the mirror. She wasn't beautiful. She was fat. Everyone knows handsome, sexy guys do not make passes at fat girls. She swiped at the tears trailing down her cheeks.
Amber didn't bother going home. Instead she drove to the antiquities shop. There had to be a way to make the magic last. The shop was closed. Permanently. A sign on the door announced a new shoe store would soon open in the spot. The storefront itself looked like it hadn't been inhabited for years. If she didn't have the physical proof around her neck, even she would have doubted a viable store operated there yesterday.
Fortunately, the car knew the way home as tears blurred her vision and raw emotion destroyed her concentration. She pulled into her parking spot, dashed to her front door and fumbled for her keys. The place was just as she had left it, even though she herself had physically and emotionally changed. She glanced over to the mirror in the front room.
Her cheekbones were back! She ran from room to room, mirror to mirror. Each image reflected a thinner face, a slimmer body.
"Amber?"Todd's voice called from the doorway.
She stepped out from the bedroom. "What are you doing here?"
"I followed you. You were so upset, I wasn't sure you'd get home safely."He stepped toward her. "Is there anything I can do to make things better?"
She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the large mirror in the bedroom. "Look in here and tell me what you see."
"Soft, silky hair; lively, intelligent eyes; sweet, kissable lips."
"I'm serious, Todd."
"So am I."
"Can't you see I'm twenty pounds lighter in this mirror?"
He looked from the mirror's reflection back to her. Her breath caught waiting for his verdict. His brow knit in confusion. "Twenty pounds lighter than what?"
She fought to keep the frustration out of her voice. "This mirror shows a thinner version of what I saw reflected in your bathroom mirror."
Amber glanced at their reflection and saw the light in the amulet swirl, almost a wink. Suddenly, she recognized the enchantment. No wonder her clothes fit, she had never really lost any weight. The spell affected her mirrors, not her body. She was never beautiful, not even with the help of a little magic.
"Look at me. I'm a fat cow."The constriction in her throat made speaking almost impossible. "You don't have to lie. I know now what I am."
He took her hand. "Then you know that you're funny, and smart and someone I want to know better."She turned away but he guided her face back to his. "Dammit woman. Don't you know your eyes make me believe I can leap tall buildings in a single bound?"
She smiled in spite of the tears streaming down her face.
"See. No one else thinks I'm funny."He let go of her hands just long enough to wrap his arms around shoulders and pull her to his chest. "Believe me,"His breath warmed her ear. "I have no inclination to run out and hug cattle. But you--"He squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. "This feels so right, having you in my arms."
"Don't let me go,"she said, her voice muffled by his shirt and chest.
"Honey, I'm not making that mistake again."
His chest bounced with a soft chuckle, jostling her cheek. She smiled, squeezing her eyes tight to stem the flow of tears. After a few moments, he pulled back and tilted her chin up to his.
"Now what is this nonsense about twenty pounds?"
"It doesn't matter anymore,"she said, pleased to realize that it truly didn't. "I thought I had lost some weight but it was all smoke and mirrors."
She ran her hands up the sides of his chest, feeling his solid existence. Her eyes met his. "But this...this is real and true. At least I pray it is."
His lips lowered to hers. "Amen to that."
A thin trail of smoke issued from the back of the amulet...
To Call the Moons
by Megan Sybil Baker
Megan Sybil Baker is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy romance author who also is published under her real name of Linnea Sinclair. Her latest books include An Accidental Goddess and Command Performance. Readers can reach her through her website at www.starfreighter.com.
This he knew with unwavering certainty: he would kill her before the next full moons rose.
A thick canopy of interweaving branches tattooed the sky overhead. Light from the setting sun barely trickled through. Within the hour, Alith, the first moon would rise. An hour after that, Takin would ascend. Neither full yet; not for another three days. Torrin didn't need to glance upward for confirmation. He knew. Just as he knew the rain before it fell and the wind before it whined through the timbers. He was one of the damned; a full-blood Chalith, mage-line. Moon-kin.
He watched the woman a few steps in front of him tilt her head, scenting the river he'd known ten minutes ago was there. Not for the first time he wondered if she were Chalith-ar; soiled-blood moon-kin. In the two days since they'd fled Frothborn's prison, there'd been a handful of occasions she'd commented on something he'd not thought she'd be able to sense: the presence of a dark-eyed calflet, thin and shivering and all but invisible in the underbrush. A patch of ripe glowberries, their lack of scent in direct contrast to their full, sweet taste. She read the land. Not as well as he did, of course. But she read it.
He'd convinced himself that that was what intrigued him about her. Perhaps he'd work a lineage spell on her before he slit her throat.
"There's a river ahead, guardsman."She pointed through the trees. The heavy, pitted shackle on her wrist glistened dully. "We could stop for a meal, fill our water gourds."
He made a pretense of looking around for enemies. As expected, there were none. Had there been, he'd have sensed their presence before they could even make out the lines of his tall form, or catch the muted glint of the metal clip that bound his hair at the nape of his neck. But for her, and his mission, he continued to play the bumbling, greedy guard she'd been able to bribe to gain her freedom. "If you think it's safe."
She shot him a narrow-eyed glance, her lashes dark, smudgy shadows against the paleness of her cheeks. A ghost of a smile played across her mouth. Torrin waited for the haughty retort he knew would follow; retorts he had almost come to enjoy. He wasn't disappointed.
"A tree sprite or two may intrude, perhaps. Don't worry, city-soldier. I'll not let them harm you."
He did his best to appear affronted, straightening his shoulders, adjusting the thick sash of his scabbard. "A City Guardsman has no fear of tree sprites."
She pushed against a low hanging branch, ducked under it and laughed softly when it snapped back against his throat. "Mayhaps you should. 'Tis often little things, quickly dismissed, that in the end trip us up."
He granted her that. His Chalith blade was less in length than the palm of his hand. Spellbound, it didn't need to be more in order to wield its immense power. More than one fool had misjudged the tall man with only the small blade as protection, finally in death understanding the mistake.
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br /> It would be the same blade he'd use to kill her, three nights from now. For by then he would know the truth behind her request for a Calling, and she would know what he was. For that last reason, he could not let her live.
The river's banks were wide, rocky. He kicked a space clear of stones in order to build a fire, aware that she'd removed her cloak and rummaged through her pack. Alith's light was clear and bright without the trees' interference. The moon's power surged through him. Perhaps that was why, for a moment, he gazed with an open hunger at the small woman measuring a few handfuls of dried beans into a battered metal pot.
Had she not been born a gutter-thief, she might well have been called beautiful. He didn't need to be Chalith to see that.
But he was, and that damned, exalted and exiled him at the same time. He turned back to the pile of kindling, striking the tinder stones more fiercely than was warranted. Sparks danced, pricking his skin. He focused on that, not on her, not on his mission. Not on his loneliness.
Only when their meal was finished did he again ask the question she'd stubbornly refused to answer for the past two days. "Still afraid to tell me why you seek Master Rowan?"
Her responding laughter was as silvery as the moonlight. "I think you're not a guardsman, but an interrogator with the Chancellor's Royal Enforcers."
"I'd not need the coins you promised me, then, would I?"He hefted the small misshapen sack laced to his belt. It must have taken her weeks, perhaps even months to steal those coins. Unless, as he suspected, she'd practiced her thievery under orders from the growing taint of evil that now seeped into the land.
A taint that would pay well to reach Master Rowan. And even use a winsome-faced gutter-thief to do so.
"There'll be more coin when we reach Farlong. I told you. I can pay well for one with The Mark who can call the master."
She would pay more than well. Before they reached her camp at Farlong Cove, the moons would rise full and she would see what he was. For that knowledge, she would pay with her life. A twinge of regret rose, unbidden. Automatically, he retreated to his litany of damning the moons, damning her stubbornness and damning, most of all, himself.
But he had little choice now. He was duty-bound to accept her mission, though not because he'd been paid. He fingered the sack, the hard, uneven edges of the metal disks forming an almost readable pattern. He could sense some of their previous owners: the short, balding baker. The portly cloth seller. The wizened, harsh-voiced candle maker. All unaware of their pockets being picked by the child in tattered clothing, his gutter-thief, robbing them of their coin.
Just as she was unaware who sat opposite her. Soon to rob her of her life.
He let the sack roll to the sand with a muted thud.
"You said it was enough."There was a slight hesitation in her voice. She'd misinterpreted his distaste with the coins as dissatisfaction with his fee.
"'Tis adequate,"he said with a slight shrug, not wanting her to pursue that line of questioning. It was enough for her to believe he was a City Guardsman who'd been born with The Mark, and who, at the moment, was a bit low on funds. For now. Until Alith and Takin rose full.
He woke well before sunrise and as he had the previous mornings, was drawn to watching her sleep. He thought he'd long ago lost his curiosity about Mundane folk yet this one kept snagging his interest. It wasn't her face or her form, as pleasant as both were. He'd known females more beautiful, more seductively alluring. His gutter-thief hardly qualified for alluring in her over-large shirt and tattered breeches. Incongruous, perhaps. Inconspicuous. So much so that he'd almost passed her by, chained to the wall in the dank cell as she'd been, looking to be nothing more than a mound of dirty rags.
But then, the readings in his mage circle rarely showed who'd put out a Calling for Master Rowan. Only that one lay in the ethers, open and unanswered. He answered less and less these days, sickened by the greed that prompted them. Master Rowan will grant me riches. Master Rowan will grant me fame. Master Rowan will slay my enemy, award me his wife. But this one had been different, plaintive yet powerful, and laced with something he couldn't identify. That unknown could well be the latent threat portended in the mage circles. With grim determination, he'd followed its trail to Frothborn's walls then donned the guise of a guardsman when he realized where he had to go.
And his gutter-thief, seeing the star-shaped mark on his face and the corresponding streak of pure white in his black hair, had led him to her hidden sack of coins once he'd unhooked the chain from her wrists. But the shackles he'd let remain. It would do her no good to know he could unlock something no mere guard would have a key to. And besides, he told himself, it amused him to see her so encumbered. Discomforted. Though she kept silent about it.
She shifted in her sleep. The morning light showed red welts on her wrists, and a blossoming dark bruise from the weight of the thick, uneven metal bands. For a moment, the fact that she endured pain he could banish with a touch disconcerted him. Then he shoved himself to his feet and stomped down to the river's edge to splash icy water on his face. She wasn't a helpless child to be pitied. She was a grown woman, a professional thief with far too quick and sharp a tongue who'd no doubt borne worse pain in her life than a pair of rusty shackles. And if she were an agent of this latent evil, he'd be doing her a favor by ending her life in three days.
Two days. Two more days and he'd have to kill her. But unlike whatever torture she'd suffer when she was no longer useful to her employer, death by his hand would be merciful, swift. The Chalith may be demons in this Land, but they were not monsters.
That night the pull of the moons was more intense, almost searing. More than they should be, still one day from rising full. He blamed his resulting edginess on his years and their loneliness, on the biting cold wind whistling through the trees, then on the stone he'd found in his left boot. On Miera's--for that was his gutter-thief's name--sharp tongue as she'd taunted the city- bred soldier stumbling behind her through the thick vegetation leading to their current camp. "Torry who tarries,"she'd named him, mocking him.
His feigned ineptitude wore on him, sharpening his own tongue as well as darkness descended on their campsite. "You seek the Master to ensorcell another's man, is my guess. The likes of you'd get a lover no other way."
The small hand pushing the spoon through gruel in the battered pot hesitated, but only slightly. "I'd heard Mark Bearers pass no judgment on the reason for a Calling."
Most didn't. Most followed the edicts of the Marked and dutifully performed Callings for the supplicants. But he wasn't like most of the Marked. He was Chalith. It was Miera's misfortune of chance that he'd been the one to hear her plea for a Call.
"If we pass no judgment, it's because they all sound the same."He snapped a twig between his fingers, pointed the longer section at her. "You desire something beyond your ken and want Master Rowan to hand it to you."
"Is there never any other reason?"
His lips curled derisively. "Revenge. You don't want someone else to experience their deserved good fortune."
"Those sound far too simple to warrant the attention of the master."
"Are you gauging your chance for success? You know the master grants what he wishes to and little more. Tell me your request,"he coaxed slyly. "Mayhaps it's one he's not heard before. I can guide you in its phrasing."
She hesitated just long enough that he leaned forward in the fire-lit darkness, very sure her next words would be what he'd waited to hear for three days. Perhaps, a small voice whispered, it would be something innocuous. Not a threat, nothing to fear. The safety of the land assured, he could disappear before sunrise, leave her damning him for stealing her coin. But alive.
She tapped the wooden spoon on the pot's edge. "I don't believe he's heard anything like mine, no."
"And that is...?"
"One you'll hear when you Call the master. In Farlong."
No, damn the eyes of the Gods! One he would hear by tomorrow night, with Alith and Takin surg
ing through him. And his knife on her throat. For if she lived to tell what he was-- a Marked Chalith--they'd know how to kill him. And all the land would hunt him 'til his death was assured.
That could not be. As the Marked swore fealty to their edicts, so he knew what was required of him. There was only a handful pure-blood Chalith left; he was the last of his own line. His death would unbalance the Circle of Seven. There could be no Circle of Six. It was blasphemy; it was unspeakable. If he were to die, then another Chalith must die as well to maintain balance. But the death of two in the land would rent a hole in the fabric of magicks beyond repair. Miera's folk would face an evil far beyond what they believed him to be. Chalith. Moon-kin. Demon. Unbeknownst to them, the very creatures they feared protected them. It struck him that his guise of a guardsman was not so unlikely, after all.
How then could he also be her executioner?
He'd had a choice. The same one he had with every Call he answered: dismiss the innocent, send them elsewhere. Kill those whose avarice threatened the safety of the land. He should have sent her away, that first hour, returned the coins to her keeping with a harsh word. Or a feigned illness. It mattered little the method. But for the unknown power that had hovered at the edges of her plea, and her equally as unknown reason. Why did she seek Master Rowan? Until he knew that one fact, he must regard her as a threat. Rumors whispered of a deeper evil walking the land. An evil that sought Master Rowan. But that's all the mage-circles would show. Not how or why this threat would come.
So every Calling was suspect. Even one from a winsome-faced gutter-thief whose pluckiness he'd come to grudgingly admire. She could well be the death of him, in more ways than one.
His thoughts darted like trillwisps in the moons' bright darkness. Sleep eluded him and it was but a few hours to sunrise. Damning the moons, himself and, most of all, her, he laid a light sleeping spell over her form, then shoved himself to his feet. He tossed his jacket onto his pack. The slight sound didn't wake her, nor did the crackle and slap of branches as he strode doggedly into the forest. He needed a clearing. It didn't have to be large; only well-shielded. He needed to shift, now, to his despised form. The sound of his wings on that first forceful, upward thrust would be louder than his jacket hitting his pack. Louder than the slap and crackle of branches. She might wake, see him. And he simply wasn't ready to kill her, yet. He'd been alone for so long. He craved her company, if only for another day.