FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You might be a bit biased,” Aren said. “Being stuck underwater isn’t convenient for all of the traveling I have to do. It’s nothing personal.”

  I leaned over the back of the sofa and whispered, “It’s totally personal.”

  Kel narrowed his eyes at Aren. “I knew it.” He swung his leg down and patted the space next to him, and I sat. The seat of the sofa was high, and my feet barely touched the ground. I crossed them under me, instead.

  “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

  “Not in the least,” Kel said. “We’ve just been catching up, making some plans. It’s been interesting. But I should head home soon.” He looked at Aren, then back to me. “I need to know whether you’re coming with me.”

  “Whether we’re—” I began.

  Aren shook his head. “Rowan, they can’t get involved in what’s happening with me. Taking you in is different. Severn never needs to know where you went, and he’ll find another Sorcerer to use. It shouldn’t matter to him, as long as he gets me.”

  “We’re happy to have you, Rowan,” Kel added. “We have trouble leaving a puzzle unsolved, and your binding could be an interesting challenge. I don’t know how much help we’ll be, but we’ll try. The elders are looking forward to meeting you. But I can’t bring Aren back with me.”

  “How can you both be so calm about this?” I asked, and pushed myself to my feet again. I turned to Aren. “What are you going to do?”

  “Get away from here before Severn knows I’ve been in contact with the merfolk. After that, I don’t know.” I looked harder into his eyes and saw that the calm was an act. I just couldn’t tell what was underneath.

  “Then no.”

  “Rowan,” Aren said, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish.

  “No. I’m sorry, Kel, and I appreciate the offer more than I can say. I would love to meet your people, and having you solve my puzzle would change my life so much…”

  “But you’re not coming.”

  “No.”

  Kel considered for a moment. “Have you thought that it might be easier for Aren on his own? Easier to hide, or to escape if there’s trouble?”

  I hadn’t. “Is that true?” I asked Aren. “Because if you don’t want me around, just say you want me to go.”

  “You should—”

  “No, I don’t want to hear what you think I should do. If you don’t want me around, I want you to say it.”

  Aren opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and looked away. “I can’t do this.” He stood and walked out the front door, letting it swing shut and latch behind him.

  I wanted to run after him and ask what that meant. He didn’t want to hurt me? Or did he have feelings for me that were as confusing as mine for him?

  I sank back onto the sofa and slumped against the cushions. “It’s only a matter of time before they find him, isn’t it?”

  “Possibly.”

  “And Severn will kill him when he does.”

  “If Aren’s lucky. But there’s nothing you can do about that.” His words sounded callous, but there was sadness in Kel’s voice.

  “So you’re just going to let it happen?”

  Kel drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s not up to me. Nor should it be. Our elders make decisions that affect every one of us, and this is what they’ve decided is best.”

  “I understand.”

  “So you’ll come with me? I’ll take you to the Grotto, you’ll meet my people. We can do tests to see what’s happened to you, how strong your magic is. Figure out how to help you, maybe who can help you—”

  “Thank you so much, but I can’t leave him.” I tried to smile. “Foolish, right?”

  Kel returned a smile that was warmer and more genuine than mine. “Not at all, actually.”

  I walked him to the door. “I really wish I could come. If the rest of your people are anything like you, I think I’d have liked them very much.”

  “They’d have liked you, too.” He held out his arms, and I hugged him around his waist. We walked together to the dock, where Aren sat on a crate, looking out over the cold, gray lake. He gave Kel a questioning look, and Kel shook his head.

  “Can I have a little longer to talk to her about this?” Aren asked.

  “Maybe. I’ll come back tomorrow if I can, but I shouldn’t risk being seen.”

  “Thank you.”

  I turned to climb the path back to the house. I knew what Aren was going to say, and I wasn’t ready to hear it.

  Chapter XXVI

  Rowan

  AREN CLOSED THE DOOR HARDER coming in than he had going out. I was in the kitchen putting away dishes, trying again to make mindless work do my thinking for me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, nearly yelling as he stalked toward me. “You have to go.”

  “Do I? I thought I had a choice in this.” I managed to keep my voice cool and level, but inside I was trembling. I couldn’t look at him.

  “You do,” he said more quietly, but no less intensely. “But this might be your only chance to make this right. Even if they can’t fix this, they can keep you safe until they find someone who can.”

  “Maybe.” I put down the plate I was holding and gripped the edge of the counter. “Do you want me to go? Tell me honestly.”

  If I was mistaken in thinking that he might feel something for me, that would make my decision simple. I knew that going with Kel was the reasonable thing to do, but I wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable. He’d have to say it.

  “Honestly?” He stood so close behind me that I felt him on my skin, though he didn’t touch me. “It doesn’t matter what I want. There’s nothing here for you. Nothing good, and no happy ending. You know what you should do.”

  “I don’t think what I should do and what I want to do are the same thing.” I turned and nearly bumped into his chest. He’d taken off his sweater, and wore only a shirt that was thin enough that I could see the shape of his body behind it. His pulse beat hard at his throat.

  He half-smiled, but his eyes were tired and unhappy. He reached out to touch my hair, then let his hand drop to his side. “Rowan, I think a lot of your problem is that you don’t know what you want.”

  “Don’t I?” I followed him as he walked back to the sitting area.

  “Not as far as I can tell. When I met you, you were having so much trouble making a decision about getting married that your cousin practically had to decide for you.”

  “Because I knew that I didn’t want—”

  He spun to face me. “Then you should have gone and found what you did want. Instead you were going to try to convince yourself that whatever you were getting was good enough, even though you knew better.”

  “You think it would have been easy for me to say no? To pack up and leave?” My muscles tensed as I stepped closer.

  “No. But if you go now, if your magic can be unbound, you can do anything. Anything. But you don’t even know if you want that, do you? You’re still afraid of it.”

  I hesitated for a moment. My anger left me, but my heart continued to pound as I looked into his eyes. I wanted him. Wanted him to kiss me, to touch me. I swallowed hard, though my mouth had gone dry. “You don’t think you can want something and still be afraid of it?”

  He sighed. “No, you can. And you should. What you’re saying no to is better than you can imagine. This decision should be so easy. You have until tomorrow to decide what you—”

  I stepped closer again. “I don’t need until tomorrow. I know what I want.” I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled myself up onto my toes, and kissed him. Hard. He froze for just a second, and then his mouth moved against mine. He touched my face, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me in. His response was better than anything I’d dreamed, or ever could have. My legs felt like they were melting away. I pulled back, and he sank to the couch, breathing hard. I kissed his forehead. “Can I have that?”

  He just looked at me for seconds t
hat seemed to stretch into hours. His gaze left mine and dropped to watch his hand move to my waist. “This is a terrible idea,” he murmured as he pulled me onto his lap. “Have you even thought about—”

  “I don’t need to.” I pressed my lips to his again and wrapped my arms around his neck, and let my jaw relax as his did, opening slightly to let him in. Warmth flooded my body as he let me fall back onto the couch. His lips never left mine as he turned to lie over me. For a moment I was afraid—uncertain in spite of my bold actions, lost in my inexperience. But my desire washed away my fear as he ran his hand up my arm and over my throat, over the outside of my shirt. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I arched my back to push against him. His touch sent waves of pleasure through me that settled between my thighs, and I groaned and ground my hips against him.

  He drew in a quick breath and grabbed my thigh to hold me still. I pulled his hand back up to my breast. He made me feel dizzier than I had after the strong heartleaf medicine, and I wanted more. So much more. I tried to pull his shirt over his head, but he pulled back, lifting himself to his forearms.

  “We can’t do this. Not now.”

  I ran my fingers through his hair, and in my frustration pulled harder than I meant to. “Why? I’m not going, either way.”

  “And I don’t want you to. You can stay as long as you want, but…”

  I shifted under him, and he took another sharp breath.

  “But what? Do you have some moral objection?” Because it’s pretty obvious that you want to.

  “No. Maybe I should, but I don’t. If we knew no one was looking for us, it would be different.”

  I placed the palm of my hand against his chest to feel the solid contours of his muscles, then trailed my fingers over his stomach. He reached down and threaded his fingers through mine, then moved my hand away.

  He leaned down to kiss my jaw just below my ear. “But they are looking for us,” he whispered, and pulled away again. “I have to at least try to stay aware of what’s happening outside of this house. Every time you’re close to me, my focus slips. You saw how easily Kel sneaked up on us this morning when you were touching my scar. I don’t ever want to say no to you. But we should think about whether this is really worth dying for.”

  You tell me, I thought. I wanted so badly to find out. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself.

  “Rowan?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  He smiled and kissed me again, more gently than he had before. “I said I was going to keep you safe, and I’d like to spend a bit more time with you before—” The smile vanished, and he rolled off of me and sat up. “I can’t let them find you.”

  I pulled a cushion over my face and screamed into it. “So what are we supposed to do? Just hang around here and I’ll try not to touch you, ever? That might kill me, anyway.”

  “I don’t know. Let me think about it.” He stood and said something about finding a snowbank to lie down in, and walked out the front door.

  Deep breaths, I told myself. I rolled onto my stomach and laid there until my heart slowed and the fire in my skin cooled. When I stepped outside, Aren had changed and was soaring over the lake. Probably the best thing for now, I thought, and wished I could set aside my emotions so easily.

  He spotted me and swooped down. His landing wasn’t perfect, but it was better than his previous attempts. He perched on the fence beside me and nibbled at the sleeve of my shirt.

  “Get off,” I said, but I leaned over and kissed the side of his beak. He winked at me and took off again.

  This is the weirdest thing ever. I went back inside and found a book to try to keep my mind off of him.

  It didn’t work.

  I’d been cooking since I was old enough to stand on a chair and help Della measure flour, but that night I found that preparing even a simple meal of vegetables and the previous night’s chicken was nearly impossible. I forgot what I was doing every time Aren came close to me. When he touched my waist as he went past, I burned my hand on a pot of boiling water. We sat at the table before we ate, and he rubbed Sara’s salve into my skin. I could have done it myself. I didn’t want to.

  Later, he showed me the map that he and Kel had drawn while I was asleep. It was a beautiful thing, a simple drawing of charcoal on yellowing paper. The eastern part of Darmid filled the left edge of the page, with the mountains, the isthmus that divided our lands, and my home province spilling east from there. To the right, Tyrea spread out like a living thing, arms and legs stretching into the ocean. A large island nearly touched the eastern edge, and smaller ones freckled the shores and bays. They’d sketched in mountains, rivers and lakes, and the country was divided by dash-lines into six territories.

  “Where are we?” I asked, and Aren pointed to a lake that seemed far too close to the border with Darmid. He had to lean close to do it, and my heart stumbled over itself as his hair tickled my skin. I took a deep breath. “We can’t have only come that far.”

  “It’s not a small country. You can see how flying is most convenient when I need to travel.”

  “And is all of it like the land here, hills and forests and lakes?”

  “No.” He pointed to an area in the south of the country, a round bay that cut into the land and was bordered on the east by a protective arm of land.

  “That’s Luid,” he said. “It’s warmer there. We still see the seasons, but the winters are much milder. Summer can be unpleasantly warm, which is why wealthy Luidites have these homes to retreat to.” His fingers traced a path directly north from Luid. “Here’s Cressia. It’s not a place I’d recommend you visit. During my great-grandfather’s time dragons swept down from the mountains here.” He indicated a range bordering the northern sea. “They killed or drove out most of the humans, and for the most part, we’ve left the land to them.”

  “Sounds a bit like what my people did to the dragons.”

  “Perhaps. There are people who still live there in small settlements, and as a population they have stronger magic than people living elsewhere. Severn watches them very carefully.”

  “What about the rest of the country?”

  “You’d like most of it, I think. The silver forest in Tauren is said to be a good place to see unicorns, but that could just be talk to get people to visit and spread their gold around. There’s a valley in the east where the trees grow upside down with their roots in a canopy of clouds and their leaves spread out over the ground. There’s the Despair bordering Luid in the north, which is better protection from an army than any wall. Something in the middle of that place breaks your heart and your mind the closer you come to it. Most plants won’t even grow there.

  “Grasslands through the middle here, mountains to the north and west—those would be the Eastern Mountains to you, of course. Gryphons, flying horses and the Ayer in the mountains and foothills, and more creatures you’ve only read about in other places.” He drummed his fingers on the paper. “I grew up with all of this, and it still often surprises me. I wish I could see what you thought of it all.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here forever,” I said. “Where will we go next?”

  “I don’t know. I have a few ideas.” He looked more tired than I’d seen him before, so much so that he appeared older than he had the first time I met him.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I will be. Constantly using magic takes a toll. Transformations and mind control are difficult, but at least they’re fast. This awareness and trying to stay focused is…” He smiled. “It’s just draining me a little. I’m going to rest my eyes for a few minutes.” He ran a hand over my hair, twirling the ends like I did so often, then went to the sofa and stretched out on his back.

  I steeped heartleaf bark again, trying to move quietly so he could rest, then sat at the table and looked over the map again. The terrain was well marked, but Aren hadn’t labeled anything. Not natural features, not territories, not cities. He didn’t need to. He knew this huge piece of land l
ike I knew the forest around Stone Ridge.

  And yet he couldn’t think of a single safe place for us to go.

  I went up to the bedroom to wash up, and Aren was still asleep when I returned. I thought about waking him up and telling him to go to bed, but I couldn’t disturb him. I put out the lamps and opened the window coverings to let the moonlight in, brought a blanket out from the bedroom and went to lay it over him. I’d meant to leave him to rest, but wondered whether he’d object to me staying with him. He’d wanted me earlier, but that was different. He seemed far less comfortable with comfort and affection.

  I touched his face. He opened his eyes slightly, and I pulled back. For a moment he did nothing. Then he shifted his body to make space beside him. My stomach fluttered as I sat, then slowly lowered myself to rest my head on his arm.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered.

  He wrapped his arms around me, and I fell asleep with his heartbeat drumming in my ear.

  There were no dreams about being chased by dragons, and no dancing. There was no closet on the stairs. Just a dark, gloomy forest I was very familiar with, though only from my dreams. The ancient trees dripped with moss, and the ground was covered with rocks, fallen trees, and ferns. Nothing seemed to be happening, which suited me well enough. I waited.

  Aren walked toward me, seeming to appear out of nowhere, and sat on a lichen-spotted boulder. I took a hesitant step toward him. “Are you really you?” I asked.

  “I think so. I was going to ask you the same thing, but this place definitely isn’t mine. Do you come here often?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He looked up into the dark forest canopy. “Such a cheerful spot.”

  “There are worse places,” I said, thinking of the suffocation dreams. The binding dreams, I supposed.

  “It’s interesting. I really should try to wake up, though. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t.” I sat on one of his legs and rested my head on his shoulder. “There’s nowhere we’ll be safe, is there?”