The Tides of Bára

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Maybe someone will be glad of the shelter,” she offered. “And the remaining barrels of water. Not like we can carry them.”

  Much as he hated to leave so much useful water behind, he had to agree. Once they made it home, he could send people back for it. Turning Butter—the warhorse’s head towards Dru, they rode out.

  ~ 17 ~

  For the next couple of days and nights, they rode mostly without incident, stopping to sleep for a few hours, then continuing on, not even staying at the last oasis for long. True to Lonen’s predictions, the landscape soon began to change, the scrubby desert vegetation giving way to lusher bushes, then to copses of trees with needle-like leaves. Evergreens, he called them. They were able to refill their flasks from small springs that flowed with sweet water, then even from little ponds, surrounded by moss-covered rocks, like naturally occurring oases. They took forever to fill even a small flask but didn’t accumulate enough to fill a golem’s barrel, so had escaped their depredations, but they were plenty to sustain the four of them.

  The waiting while the flasks filled gave them time to rest, which even Lonen took advantage of, his face gray with weariness.

  The weather also grew colder as they left the desert behind, making her shiver so much in her thin silks that Lonen insisted she wear his furred cloak, and wouldn’t hear of them sharing. She worried about his slowing recovery. For all that he’d healed rapidly at first, he’d barely recovered more than that. He refused to let her use any of her energy to boost the process, saying—not at all nicely—that he’d healed without her before and could do it again. She’d learned not to ask him about it, as he tended to bite her head off. Had she been this awful to deal with when she felt terrible?

  Probably.

  So she found other ways to surreptitiously support him. Chuffta, once again bright-eyed and full of flame, hunted for them, saving Lonen that effort. While she couldn’t bring herself to skin and gut the unfortunate creatures—usually those same rodents, though birds also fell prey to the derkesthai’s skills—she did learn to cook them. That way she could pretend to eat more while giving most of it to Lonen. He needed the food far more than she did.

  For her part, she kept her portals tightly closed and hoarded the sgath she’d taken from the golems, having sucked every last one dry while Lonen slept that long first afternoon. With Chuffta also asleep, her head had been far too quiet. She’d missed both her Familiar’s running commentary and Lonen’s teasing. She might have regretted having blurted her feelings to Lonen, except that it seemed to please him so much. Still, she was already so dependent on him, she had to fight a gaping sense of vulnerability. He wouldn’t mistreat her, she trusted in that. And he’d repeatedly demonstrated that he was committed to their marriage and would be a devoted spouse.

  Still, it would be nice if he felt more than lust for her. The nearer they came to the forests of Dru, the more she imagined Lonen’s regret when he laid eyes on his lost love Natly again. Perhaps his distance came from that regret already.

  Every time she thought that, she thrust it aside as foolish. He behaved gruffly because he was in pain. She’d been unpleasant to him, too, when she was so sick.

  So she left him to his grim silence, resisting the urge to probe his mind. She didn’t need to be sniffing out his thoughts and feelings, especially when she needed every last drop of sgath to stay alive long enough to help the Destrye. How she’d stop the Trom, she still didn’t know, but it certainly would require magic. Lots of sgath. Chuffta’s idea of luring golems to feed her from their packets could work.

  With that power in reserve, hopefully she could devise a way to summon the Trom that wouldn’t require her to spend all she had, letting her assume command and order them away. With Gallia a possible ally, she could hope was that her new sister would sabotage any efforts of Yar’s to summon the Trom back to his side.

  If so, with that task accomplished, she could move on with her obligations met. What that life would be, she didn’t know. But she refused to tie Lonen to her in a one-sided agreement. He shouldn’t have to forever pay the price for saving his people, not even if it pleased him that she’d fallen in love.

  No, she’d see her vows done, and then think of next steps. All she had to do was decipher a long-held temple secret with no help, fuel the summoning with minimal power, and be strong enough to withstand whatever the Trom asked in return.

  “Remember your mother’s cautions about doing this on your own,” Chuffta inserted into her thoughts, unnecessarily.

  “I rather think becoming like my aunt Tania, whoever she might have been, is the least of my worries.” Better to use up some mental energy than give Lonen one more thing to worry about.

  “I think it’s a very real concern, Oria. What’s if there’s more to the temple prohibition against women using grien magic than superstition or fear? The Trom were very interested in you—and that can’t be a good thing. If ‘ponen’ means potential, that could be potential for power as corrupt as theirs.”

  “But there are two faces to all magic, yes? Sgath and grien, absorbing and thrusting. Where there’s potential for corruption, there must be potential for … whatever the reverse of corruption would be.”

  “Growth? Restoration? Healing?”

  “Yes. Nurturing, not decomposition.” She’d used her grien that way before, to grow things. How could that be wrong—or even corrupt? “I’ve managed to survive in ways we couldn’t have predicted, back in Bára. Perhaps I’ll even find other ways to access magic.”

  “You have ideas?”

  “I’d like to suggest to Lonen your idea of luring in some golems and using them. Also, I’ve been thinking—I could maybe harness the wild magic.”

  Chuffta pondered that, his thoughts sifting quietly. “I don’t know if anyone ever has,” he finally offered.

  “Yes, well, we didn’t know a sorceress of our people could survive beyond the walls either. If we’re to help Dru, I’ll have to think of other outside-the-walls ideas. Harnessing wild magic is an obvious possibility.”

  Not that she wanted to try it any time soon. Even still it made her shudder, thinking of the sheer chaotic enormity of the wild magic when she’d opened her senses to it. Now that she’d found a way to shut it out, she could maintain that default reasonably well. Sometimes, though, the wild magic sneaked through while she slept deeply, warping her dreams and then jerking her awake with the jangling input until she slammed shut her portals again. Fortunately, Lonen hadn’t noticed. He slept apart from her—on the other side of the fire he and Chuffta unfailingly built to keep her warm—citing his half-healed wounds and claiming that he’d only cause her pain if they touched and keep them both from sleeping.

  She missed the closeness of how they’d cuddled at the oasis, and tried to remind herself that it didn’t mean Lonen was distancing himself from her. True, she shouldn’t have put him on the spot by confessing her feelings, but there were many good reasons for them to sleep apart besides that.

  Touching skin-to-skin wasn’t possible regardless since her sensitivity to touch, if not quite back full force, was still a very real problem. Also, the way he jerked and shouted in his sleep reminded her of that nightmare she’d wakened him from that first night in her bed, when he’d sheepishly confessed to having bad dreams about the golems—and her. She strongly suspected the golem battle that nearly killed him had stirred up those nightmares again and he sought to hide it from her.

  “Or the vision he had of you with Trom eyes. Like Yar’s.”

  “A dream only.”

  “Summoning could do that to you. It did something to Yar. Maybe to Febe, too.”

  “They were rotten to begin with. We don’t know it will affect me the same way.”

  “We don’t know that it won’t.”

  “Do you have another suggestion for saving the Destrye from the Trom’s attacks?”

  Chuffta didn’t reply so she considered the argument concluded. At least he didn’t pry into her bruised
feelings. No advice for the lovelorn.

  She was dozing against Lonen’s back, enjoying being close to him and the soft, lulling warmth of the afternoon. Amazing, truly, that the sun could be so different from the one in Bára. That was, she knew it to be the same sun, but it seemed to have a totally different character. Soft and gentle, never scorching. And most welcome after the bitter nights and chilly mornings.

  “Look, Oria,” Lonen said, the first words he’d spoken in hours. He tended to fall into his taciturn silences and she left him alone, remembering well how she’d preferred to stay quiet with her energy flagging, feeling like she was dying by finger-widths. Though Lonen wasn’t dying.

  Was he?

  She studied him where he’d turned in the saddle to get her attention. His color wasn’t good. Far too pale—even a little gray-green—with violet shadows under his eyes.

  “Not me,” he said with impatience, just as she opened her mouth to ask how he felt. “There.” He indicated a small spring that steamed amid a copse of evergreens, surrounded by the moss that seemed to always accompany them. The sheer amount of green everywhere continued to astonish her, but this one also sported small yellow flowers. Short and velvety looking, they shone like little stars in an emerald sky. “Buttercups,” he explained, with a little smile, holding out his forearm so she could use it to climb down. “The heat from the spring keeps it warm enough for them to bloom.”

  Because he’d rest if she did, she dismounted, Chuffta winging in to land on her shoulder, stroking her cheek with his in affectionate greeting. Behind her, Lonen grunted as he lowered himself from Buttercup’s back, but she resisted turning around to check on him as he’d only growl at her. She knelt on the soft moss and caressed the silken petals of one of the small blossoms, relieved when Lonen sat beside her.

  He plucked one and handed it to her, bowing slightly, and she didn’t miss the wince of pain that crossed his face, though he banished it quickly. “For my lady,” he said, a hint of breathlessness beneath.

  She watched him surreptitiously as she sniffed it, finding the scent only that of a living plant, no particular fragrance. Buttercup the horse nuzzled her shoulder and she held the blossom up to him to lip.

  “Don’t let him eat that,” Lonen said sharply. “They’re poison.”

  “Are they?” She examined the pretty flower and mentally nudged Buttercup to go graze on some water weeds instead. “Hmm. Kind of tough and dangerous after all, then.”

  Lonen opened his mouth to retort, then closed it and shook his head. With a sigh, he lay back on the moss in the shade and closed his eyes. “You never give up once you’ve set your mind on something, do you?”

  “Much like someone else I know,” she agreed, sending Chuffta off to splash in the spring as he liked to do. Not as good as building a fire, but still fun. “Which is why we’re going to talk about the fact that you’re not only not getting better, you’re getting worse.”

  “Oria.” His tone was oppressive. “There’s no point in—”

  “Is this pride, Destrye?” she cut in, making the tone mocking enough that he cracked open an eye to glare balefully at her. “The sand is blowing in your tower now.”

  “You don’t have to sound so Arill-cursed pleased about it,” he growled, closing his eyes again, obviously beyond weary.

  “I’m not pleased, Lonen.” She searched for the right words to get through to him. Gave up. “I’m worried about you. The wounds are infected, aren’t they?” She’d tried so hard to clean them well, but she’d clearly missed something.

  He grunted and she thought that might be the only reply she’d get. Then he turned his head and opened his eyes to gaze at her, the gray silver-bright with fever. “It seems our fate that one or the other of us is sick.”

  “The wound in your side?” she persisted, guessing, as that had been the worst and the hardest to clean. The first to be cauterized as he’d been losing so much blood from it.

  He nodded, slowly, keeping his eyes on her. “But there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  “Let me see.”

  “No.” He held up a hand when she moved toward him, hardening his voice. “No, and I mean that, sorceress. You can’t help me without hurting yourself, and even then there’s not much to be done. We’re nearly to Dru. The healers at Arill’s Temple will help me.”

  She knotted her fingers together, certain he lied to her. “Can you read his thoughts, tell me if he’s lying?” she asked Chuffta privately.

  “Don’t try going around me to the lizardling,” Lonen sharply.

  How could he always tell?

  “He keeps picturing the lake, but…” came Chuffta’s slow and thoughtful reply.

  “But what?”

  “Oria! I mean it. You promised me the privacy of my thoughts,” Lonen struggled to sit, his face going decidedly gray. She pushed him back down with ease.

  “He’s sure he’s dying,” Chuffta confirmed. “I can see it clearly now. He’s hoping to live long enough to get you to Dru.”

  “Stupid. Stubborn. Barbarian. Thick-headed. Idiot.” She chanted the words, tearing at Lonen’s shirt while he feebly tried to stop her. The effort exhausted him and he gave up, staring up at the leaves, sweat rolling in greasy rivulets down his temples into his hair. She gasped when she got the shirt pulled up. The bandage she’d put on him only two days before had completely corroded, soaked through with blood and pus, black lines radiating out with menace. “Oh, Lonen…”

  He laughed, of all things, breathless and resigned. “Now I know it’s as bad as I thought.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

  “No apologies, remember?”

  “That’s my one for the day,” she snapped, reaching for the bandage. Stopped by the pain of his hand closing around her wrist. She snatched it back, holding it to her breast, bewildered.

  “I’m sorry.” Lonen’s breathing was labored. “There’s my one for the day. You can’t remove the bandage.”

  “It’s covered in pus,” she reasoned. “Let me wash the wound and then I’ll make a fresh bandage.”

  “No.” He stared up at the leaves again, but she thought he didn’t see them. “Washing won’t help. Something in my gut got nicked and the dirt comes from there. I’ve seen it before, belly wounds like this. The flesh all around it weakens. Your bandage is the only thing holding my guts in.”

  She sat there, impotent, holding her wrist against her breast, trying to think of a solution.

  Lonen rolled his head, looking for her. “You couldn’t have changed it. I was doomed the moment that claw got me.”

  “And you knew all along,” she hissed at him, full of unreasoning fury. “You hid it from me.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, then changed it and shook his head. “I wasn’t sure at first, only felt it later. And the last time I looked, well…”

  “It’s obvious.” Her whisper turned over and over in her mind. Obvious. Obvious. Obvious.

  “I thought I could get you all the way to Dru, but…” He trailed off, staring at the leaves again. Or maybe the sky. “This might be as good a place as any. Tell Arnon to put up a marker for me, later, when there’s time.” He laughed again, at a joke only he understood.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” she told him, suddenly aware of how hard she gripped her own wrist. Deliberately she let go.

  “I’m not sure you have a choice, love,” he replied, his tone abstract. “I probably shouldn’t have gotten off Buttercup. There won’t be any getting back on. Not even with your circus tricks. You go, take Chuffta and Buttercup. You can reach the borders of Dru by nightfall.”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to leave you.” If he’d been more lucid, he would have caught the dangerous edge in her voice.

  “You won’t be.” He lifted his fingers as if reaching for her, rolling his head to look for her. “Ride for Dru and bring back the healers. That’s my only hope.”

  “I’m not falling for that again.”

&nb
sp; “Wise. He will not live for us to return.”

  “I’m only amazed that he managed to conceal it this long.”

  “He is most stubborn, it’s true.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said out loud. Time to conserve her energy for what needed doing. What she should have done in the first place. Steeling herself, she knelt up and laid her hands on Lonen’s bare skin.

  He yelped as if burned himself, and grabbed her wrists. “What in Arill are you doing, Oria?”

  She used all her strength to resist him, opening the channel between them that the wedding magic had created back in Bára. At least she had that, a direct conduit that the wild magic couldn’t infiltrate. “One advantage,” she gritted through her teeth, “of you being so cursed stubborn and prideful is that you’re too weak now to fend me off. I’m not letting you die.” Ruthlessly, she connected the channel from him to her carefully sealed reservoir of sgath. The cool magic flowed eagerly into him, as if as drawn to Lonen as Oria herself.

  “If you do this, you’ll die,” Lonen protested, sounding desperate.

  “Not necessarily. We’re close to Dru and you’ve been certain all along that I’ll be better once there. Maybe I believe in your optimism finally.” She tried giving him a cocky grin, though it likely came out distorted, his terrible agony filling her along with all the jangling input, even as the life-sustaining sgath drained from her.

  “Oria,” he pleaded with her now, his voice in the distance.

  But he was gaining strength—both a good and bad thing. Good that her scheme was working. Bad that he might be able to wrest her away from him. She redoubled her efforts, opening her channels so fully that the wild magic started to pour in, too.

  “Don’t do this,” he gritted, managing to lift her hands from his skin. “You need your magic to save the Destrye.”

  “Your goddess Arill can take the Destrye for all I care!” She shrieked her defiance, at him, at the fate that had lost her the crown and her home in one brutal swoop, at the sheer agony of the magic coursing through her.