by T. A. White
With Fallon, it was different.
“What do you want?”
Why wouldn’t he just leave?
“You know what I want.”
She rolled her eyes. For her to be his Tolroi. Yeah, right.
“What do you want from me? Really?” Feeling vulnerable and off balance by her nakedness, she attacked the only way she could. Verbally. “We both know it’s not to be your Tolroi. My face and body aren’t the type to engender such passion in another. So tell me, what do you really want?”
The water sloshed against the sides of the tub as she moved restlessly.
“How long have you been with us?” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. The back of his fingers trailed down her cheek, her neck and across one shoulder in a stray caress that sent shivers racing down her back.
He smiled as the gentle ripples in the water gave away her disquiet. It was a conqueror’s smile, full of dark thoughts and decadent intentions.
Shea was so in over her head.
“Roughly eight months?” His thumb rubbed delicately against the rim of her ear. “I wonder how much you learned in that time.”
He rested his chin on the arm draped across the tub. Shea watched him, spellbound by the liquid warmth in his whiskey colored eyes.
“Do you know how most Trateri chooses their Telroi, the bearer of their children?”
Shea shrugged. She’d heard stories. That was it. Some of them had seemed a little farfetched.
“Most pairings happen when one abducts the other.”
Shea hid her skepticism. That was pretty much another way to say kidnapping. There wasn’t a lot of places a relationship could go from there.
“Yes,” he said to the clear doubt in her face. “Our people have a long standing tradition of seeing a potential partner and then claiming them whether they want to be claimed or not.”
“Doesn’t seem like an ideal start to a life together.”
“You forget that for the past four generations our people were not united. They were scattered in tribes, and every tribe regarded the others as enemies. Carrying our potential mates off into the night was the only way to survive as a people.” He tugged at a strand of hair. “It also added spice to a couple’s beginning.”
Some spice.
“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re so all fired up to have me as your Tolroi. If I recall, the first time you tried to make off with me, I was coming off a three day journey across country and had just mounted a rescue mission. I hardly compared to the beauties in your own camp.”
Shea didn’t lie to herself. Her strengths lay in her brain and her talent for navigation, not in how fair of face she was. She was happy with that much and saw no need to aspire to more. The fact that a warlord professed to want her was baffling and set her instincts twanging. There was more.
“It’s true. Your beauty isn’t the type to outshine the likes of Indra.”
Ha. Shea knew it.
“But there’s more to attraction than the exterior packaging. The color of your eyes has been burned into my brain since that man ripped away your hood in Edgecomb. The feel of your body when I caught you on the wagon has tormented me in dreams ever since. I never know what is going on behind those eyes of yours.” He gave her a wicked smile and Shea’s breath caught at the sight. “You are a constantly evolving puzzle. It drives me mad, and for someone like me, who can guess an opponent’s move before they even make it, that is more attractive than a fragile thing like appearance could ever be. You ask why you. How could it be any but you?”
Shea’s heart felt like it was going a mile a minute. She felt like she was suspended and any movement would send her plummeting to the ground.
For a warlord used to spending time killing or practicing to kill, he could sure talk pretty. Even Dane didn’t have as glib a tongue as this man.
Shea had to be careful, or he’d wrap her around his finger before she even know what hit her.
“So it’s not because I’m one of the few who can get you past the cliffs?”
Fallon didn’t move, the expression on his face remained unchanged, and yet the room felt saturated with his anger.
Shea held very still, somehow knowing that a single movement could reap consequences she was in no way prepared to deal with.
A quick movement and Fallon caught Shea behind the neck, slowly forcing her up with him as he stood. Water sluiced down her body as she rose.
The pulse at her neck beat wildly as his gaze held her rapt attention.
“I will admit that is a significant benefit to our union,” he told her, his voice a deadly whip in its quiet intensity. “But you would have led me past the cliffs and the mist whether I claimed you as my Tolroi or not. Those weapons you had in Edgecomb are too important to walk away from. You forget, little cat, I am the warlord. I don’t need pretty words to get what I want from you.”
She grasped his wrist tightly for balance. He wasn’t hurting her. His grip was firm on her neck but not harsh.
He put his mouth against her ear and whispered, “I suggest you enjoy your run while you can. In the end, you will still be mine, and you will give me what I want.” He drew back and smiled his dark smile at her. “I will certainly enjoy the chase you lead me on.”
With that, he released her and was gone before she had caught her balance.
She sank back into the water no longer feeling the warmth.
She’d been pretty sure he wanted her to get him past the mist and into the Highlands. To be truthful, she’d been expecting that all along. The Lowlands were civilized to a point. They didn’t have as many beasts, or they hadn’t before this summer, so they weren’t as isolated as the Highlands. At the same time, that isolation was the Highlands greatest advantage. The only way to attack it was from the border near the Badlands and few would brave that land long enough to launch an invasion. As a result, the Highlands hadn’t been conquered or seen a significant invasion in over a thousand years.
For the same reason, the Highlands kept the secrets of a long dead civilization locked away in its stretches of thinly populated land. Shea’s people held the key.
The most obvious secret, and the one Fallon would be most interested in, was the boomer. The Lowlands simply didn’t have anything to like it. To be truthful most of the Highlands didn’t either. Shea’s people, the conclave that trained guides, did though. If Shea hadn’t angered the elders, she would have probably been given her own weapon to look after.
Her people’s cache of weapons were kept secret from the rest of the Highlands. Though boomers were common knowledge, the worst of the weapons, the ones that sparked the cataclysm, were kept hidden. Shea didn’t know how Fallon had found out about them, but she could guess. Paul. If she was ever alone with him again, she’d probably kill him.
She crossed her arms over her knees and rested her head on them. She never should have stayed with Eamon and the others as long as she had.
Shea picked up the soap again and scrubbed at her skin. Her pleasure in the luxury had fled on Fallon’s heels, and she simply wanted to be done.
Minutes later she contemplated the outfit Trenton had given her. This couldn’t be all of it. Two tiny scraps of unadorned cotton lay on the bed. The first was a band designed to wrap around her chest, leaving her stomach, shoulders and arms bare. The small skirt that went with it looked like it would barely cover her ass.
The towel she wore covered more than the proposed clothes.
“Are you ready yet?” Trenton said impatiently from outside.
“I think there’s been some mistake.”
There was a silent pause and then the leather tent flap was slapped aside as Trenton entered.
Shea stiffened and clutched her towel tighter.
He rolled his eyes and told her, “Relax. I have no intentions towards you. Just imagining what the warlord would do to me is enough to kill any of those thoughts.”
Shea watched him carefully as he approached.
“What’s the problem?”
She pointed at the bed. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
He looked from her to the bed before raising his eyebrows and giving her a look as if he thought she was a bit of an idiot. “Put them on.”
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. He knew what she meant.
“Where’s the rest of the outfit?”
“That’s it.”
Shea could feel her blood pressure rising. She was not wearing that. If need be, she’d put her old clothes on. At this point, she didn’t care if they were coated in dirt and sweat from a day spent training.
She looked around. Not finding her old clothes, she asked, “Where are the clothes I was wearing?”
He crossed his arms and shrugged.
“Where. Are. The. Clothes. I. Was. Wearing?”
The sardonic twist of his lips told her everything she needed to know.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
They were gone. Either Fallon had taken them while she’d been lazing in the tub or someone else had come in while she was distracted and gotten rid of them.
“This is ridiculous,” she hissed softly to herself.
“Put those on and get out there.”
“I’m not wearing these.”
“You are.”
Shea let her silence speak for her.
She knew she was acting childish. The scraps of clothing would cover the pertinent pieces of her body, but she was tired of being pushed around.
“You are.” He leaned forward, invading her space. She stiffened but didn’t back up. “You will also have them on in the next five minutes so we can leave.”
She didn’t think so.
“You will not like it if I have to come back in here.”
With those ominous words, Trenton exited, leaving Shea fuming in his absence. After a long moment, she moved to comply, pulling the clothes on with angry movements.
Dressed, she took a deep breath and composed herself. It took a long moment and several deep breaths before some of the anger melted away and a bit of perspective to creep back in.
Only when she had control of herself again, did she exit.
Trenton led her out to the very edge of the camp where a crackling fire waited. Meynard and Caden sat on smoothly worn stumps on either side of the fire.
It seemed odd for a fire to be going full blast in the middle of day, especially when it was this warm out.
Trenton prodded her forward when she hesitated.
He maneuvered her until she stood on the other side of the fire. She coughed as a gust of wind blew smoke in her face.
Meynard lifted his arms and proclaimed in a voice as ageless and old as the mountains, “Shea of the Highland people, you come seeking to mingle your being with that of the grassland people.”
Shea coughed again as a deep burning spread down her throat. Had she inhaled ash?
“The grassland people are fierce with roots dating back to the beginning of time. You are either born of us or become one of us through fire.”
Shea didn’t know what he was talking about. Grassland people?
“Fire is the great catalyst. It can destroy, but it can also be an instrument of change and bring forth the seeds of a new beginning. It is life.”
The world around her rippled and then tilted. A burst of light flared behind Caden’s head and then Trenton’s. She fell to a knee as she looked around in confusion.
The old man was droning on and on. “You must survive the fire and be reborn to be fully accepted as one of us.”
She didn’t want to be one of them. She liked herself just the way she was. Shea, a pathfinder of the Highland guilds, a scout for the Dawn’s Riders.
The burning in her lungs intensified, and she coughed hard, nearly choking. A sweet smell, like that of vanilla, invaded her nose. Its scent so strong she almost imagined she could see it carried along on the breeze in ever widening arcs.
The strength left her body, and she rolled onto her back. The blue, blue sky looked down at her. It smiled at her with a delicate slice of cloud right before a bunny hopped across, leaving trails of white tufts floating after it.
There must have been something in the smoke, she realized finally.
After that she didn’t do a lot of thinking, but simply experienced things with a wide-eyed wonder as images and thoughts raced by. Sometimes these things collided in a brilliant cascade of color and light.
The first warp took her back to her childhood.
She was holding tight to a woman’s hand. In Shea’s eyes, that woman was the most beautiful woman in the world. Shea paid close attention as the woman explained the difference between a thistle thorn paw print and that of a red tail’s.
“Understand, Shea?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Lainey, are you teaching that girl tracking again?” a deep voice asked affectionately.
Shea’s mother gave the man a crooked grin. “It’s never too early to start. Huh, sweet pea?”
Shea was engrossed in studying the paw print her mother had pointed out and her little forehead puckered as she concentrated.
The man slung an arm around Lainey’s chest, pulling her firmly against him as he settled his chin on her head.
“I see you’re determined to have her follow in your footsteps.”
Shea’s head shot up, and she frowned at him. “I’m not going to be like Mommy. I’m going to be a gatherer and go on many adventures where I learn things nobody else knows.”
“Are you now?” Shea’s mother asked.
Shea nodded once, firmly.
Both her mother and father laughed. Her father leaned down and scooped her small body up.
“I guess you’d better soak up everything your mom has to teach you, then. It’s even harder to become a gatherer than it is a pathfinder.”
The world froze before twisting and bursting into a starburst of bright light.
“Pick up the pace,” Shea barked, looking back at the rear. “We need to find cover before nightfall.”
A chorus of weary groans answered. She allowed herself a brief moment as she looked over her group of twenty travelers. They, like her, were exhausted.
The journey’s stress and the constant worry of being in the Badlands were taking their toll.
Already, ten in their party had fallen. Mostly to beasts, three to the mist that fell while they’d navigated the border between the Highlands and Badlands.
A small part of her was beginning to think the elders had been right. Highlanders were simply not meant to explore this desolate land of dust and death.
“Eagle!” shouted through the ranks, as each man on the line repeated it until the shout resounded over the plateau.
Terror struck deep as a large shadow fell over them.
A draft of wind passed right over her and she tripped and fell. Brown wings trimmed in white spread wide, blocking out the sun as its owner brushed past. Screams pierced the quiet and the eagle dipped and then rose again, two men clutched in its claws.
Something inside Shea shriveled as the beast winged its way higher and higher. That same something withered further when two more eagles dropped out of the sky to claim more of her men. She’d never seen so many of them. Shea watched, motionless and helpless, as her dreams died all around her.
Her arrogance had gotten them killed.
She could do nothing but wait for her turn.
Light burst all around her and then the world went dark.
Shea opened her eyes slowly to stare up at a night sky marred by the warm glow of the fire next to her. The low murmur of voices was accompanied by the crackle and snap of the burning logs.
Her body felt as if it had been wrung dry. She swallowed, feeling like sand had been poured in her mouth.
“I see you’re finally back.” Fallon’s voice came from the dark on her left.
She turned her head, slowly, so slowly. It felt like it weighed three times what it did normally. “Did I go some
where?”
That rough, scratchy noise didn’t sound like her voice. A cool cup of water was passed to her and a large hand on her back helped her sit. She gulped the water down gratefully, not even minding when some of it missed her lips and spilled down her front.
Fallon tilted the cup away from her. “Easy.”
When he let her drink again, she forced herself to go slow even though it felt like the water evaporated as soon as it touched her parched tongue. She was numb, as if all the emotion had been stripped from her and the only thing left was a pervasive nothingness.
“What was in the fire?” Shea asked. She didn’t really care if he answered, it was just that questions had been a part of her life for so long they rose without thought.
“It’s wilder root,” Fallon told her. “My people refer to it as our venom. It’s used when a door needs to be opened between the present and the past. It’s supposed to strip away the blinders and make everything clear again. It’s not without danger, though. Some get lost in the dreams and never find their way out.”
She’d never heard of such a thing. Part of her knew she should be filing that little tidbit away to be documented later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“You’re one of us now.” Fallon picked up her hand, his felt warm against her chilled skin.
“What does that mean?” Shea found herself asking. “I’m one of you?”
“You have the same rights as a Trateri. You can claim war spoils as one of us, proclaim challenge. Any children you bear will be raised Trateri. In essence, you have become as much a Trateri as if you’d been born of us.”
“Isn’t that nice.” A little of Shea’s normal personality began to peek through. “So in the end you’re just like them.”
Fallon tilted his head and watched her carefully.
“Let me ask you something. Once you’ve conquered all of the Lowlands, what do you plan to do with this land?”
“They will be integrated into my own people as we create a country under one ruler.”
“Ah. So you mean they’ll be your servants. Good enough to work in your army and die for you but not really be one of you.”
“That’s right.” Fallon had no hesitation in his answer.