“Hmm.” Muin sighed and bent toward her ear. “One night,” he whispered. “This one night where we don’t disagree or argue.”
“We have been doing very well already tonight, Muin.”
That sounded a little too exasperated to him, so he pulled her close and kissed her soundly—no tongues, except a swipe of his over her lips. She relaxed in his arms and he cherished the feeling of her soft body against his. Then he let her go and she stepped back, looked up at him with the tenderness he’d seen earlier—that had been all too absent lately. She rubbed the front of his tunic, put her right hand over his thumping heart.
An ache for her, for them to be truly at peace together, suffused him, nearly unbearable. So he kissed her on her forehead.
In silence they turned . . . and nearly ran into a boy of seven and a young woman in her early twenties—the boy was Cal Marigold, the son of Vinni’s and Avellana’s good friends who had helped them with Avellana’s Passages to free her Flair . . . who had saved Avellana’s life and sanity.
Vinni recognized the woman as one of Cal Marigold’s teachers—voice, Vinni thought.
“Greetyou, Cal and GentleLady Diguetti,” Avellana said cheerfully.
“Merrily met, Avellana and Vinni! It’s good to see you,” Cal enthused.
But Vinni stood stock-still as the the tingle of his Flair started at the base of his spine, zipped up to his brain, then spread along his nervous system. He knew with reluctant fatality why his nerves had been on edge and why he’d taken this road.
Because he was supposed to meet these two.
The air around him increased in pressure and he could feel his eyes changing color as his prophetic magic kicked in. He’d have thought Avellana hadn’t sensed the change in him except she linked arms with him.
He heard a high and gurgling gasp, no doubt from Foo Diguetti. “Cal, come along,” she ordered.
“I’m sorry, Foo.” Cal sounded sad. “I think it’s too late. The vision is upon him.”
And Vinni saw.
Both the voice coach and Cal had gone pale.
“I don’t want this,” the young woman hissed as Vinni’s head turned toward her.
A quick prophecy for her, composed of the darkly radiant colors of her aura. “Your current gallant will leave you within this eightday week.”
She shrieked and clamped one hand over an ear, one on her mouth. Vinni sensed other people withdrawing from the wide sidewalk around them. He raised his voice and thrust his knowledge mentally to her. “You will meet the love of your life before Discovery Day next month.”
Her whimpering sobs cut off abruptly. “What?”
But his Flair focused on the young and very interesting Cal Marigold . . . and the boy’s aura seemed to expand to mix with Vinni’s, a very unusual occurrence, but Cal was the only reincarnated individual Vinni knew who sometimes recalled his past life.
“Cal,” he crooned.
“Yes, Vinni?” The boy’s voice went high with fear. Vinni sensed both women moving close to embrace the boy.
“You can have a good and uncomplicated and successful life with a loving woman—”
“I know I have a HeartMate now. I wanted a HeartMate and the Lady and Lord promised me one while I circled the Wheel of Stars during my time between lives.”
All right.
The woman on the right, Foo, separated herself from Cal, pressed against the wall of the brick building, making her silhouette as small as possible, hiding from Vinni and Cal both? Maybe.
Vinni wet his lips as the paths for Cal narrowed from a multitude to five, the future he’d just revealed remaining because Vinni had told Cal of it.
“If you hold faith,” he murmured, seeing that the darkest two paths could only be negotiated if Cal believed in himself, or leaned on his personal support system to help him through.
“What!” demanded Cal.
“If you hold faith, you will be fine. But the golden future with your HeartMate”—the white path in the middle and the golden one toward the right, the last before the wide and gentle trail—“has a big dip into a dark—”
“—such as a storm-tossed sea on a shaky ship?” asked Cal in a deeper voice with a sailor’s accent, like the man he’d been in his previous life.
“Yes.”
“I’ll take it.”
But the five futures remained.
Vinni narrowed his eyes. Something else he needed to perceive, to tell the boy. Breathing in a pattern that honed his gift, his magic, his foresight, he waited. He peered into the darkness shrouding four of the five paths, couldn’t see the exact dangers threatening the boy . . . “The dark portion of your path is not soon. You will reach it after you become an adult.”
He felt the shock of terror from the boy. “My . . . my parents and sister?”
“Are fine,” Vinni replied swiftly, irritated that he’d frightened Cal, and more than once. That was why he preferred people make appointments with him, where he could evaluate them in his specially furnished office that lessened any trauma to his clients and to himself.
Cal had recently suffered through First Passage to free his Flair, and his parents hadn’t contacted Vinni to scan him.
“Vinni, the dark time?” Cal’s voice remained high, but steady, in control. Good lad.
“Your parents and sister remain fine. You will endure personal trials.”
A shaky sigh. “Okay, then.”
And, suddenly, Vinni felt great warmth along his side, realized he’d turned cold during the vision. Chilled, sweating, he never knew how each prophetic session would affect him, had tried to keep notes . . . Yes, Avellana pressed against him. Good.
“Cal—” began Foo Diguetti.
“Not done.” Vinni snapped. The other aura shrank back so he couldn’t see it, and Cal’s five paths became clearer; he strained to see the rise of the hill from the deep. A girl stood on a path branching off to the left, which led to a throbbing heart. The blond girl looked like Cal and his mother, but with Cratag’s lavender eyes. “Lena.”
“Lena?” Avellana asked in a soothing tone, close to his ear. He smelled her and the physical distress of his body decreased.
“Lena leads Cal to his HeartMate; the introduction is through her.”
“Okay.” Cal sounded a little more chipper. Had he stepped forward?
All the paths with the shadowy dip and Lena and the branch to the left, especially the one with the brightest emerging road, came more into focus. The easy trail on the right seemed to dim—Vinni affecting Cal’s decisions even now.
“But if you choose to follow your career in the arts, as an actor and dancer and singer, you will not meet your HeartMate.”
“What?” That came from three throats.
“A good career, an excellent career, nice wife, couple of children, but no HeartMate.”
“The Lady and Lord promised.”
“They didn’t promise to make it easy,” Vinni shot back. “Gotta work for your HeartMate. Some . . . smudge there, some reason you didn’t have her in your last life—” And he’d never been so blunt before about reincarnation.
Avellana slipped under his arm and wrapped her arms around him.
“Yes, some of us have to work hard for our HeartMates.” Even he, Muin T’Vine, FirstFamily GreatLord who’d known of his HeartMate all of his life.
“Oh. Do I go back to a life on the oceans?” Again the hint of the sailor’s accent.
“No.” Vinni felt sure of that. Then he watched as a large bubble rose from the paths, seemed to elongate into an oval, then four bubbles converged, popped, and he stood in the middle of an empty sidewalk and saw Cal staring at him, scrutinizing him.
Vinni spoke of the last detail he’d wrung from his foresight. “Have you ever considered being an airship pilot?”
Pure joy showed on the boy’s face and he
went into a quick, impromptu tap dance, sliding and spinning.
Well, what boy hadn’t dreamed of being an airship pilot?
“Really?” Avellana and Foo asked in unison in thrilled wonder.
All right, girls also dreamed of becoming airship pilots.
Cal twirled to face them again, tapped a rapid pattern, and gathered the gazes of his audience, people who’d drawn near to watch the performance, now that Vinni wasn’t doing his own scary show. Then Cal stopped and made a flourishing bow. People laughed and clapped, including Avellana and Foo.
Foo came up and took Cal by the hand in a no-nonsense manner. Her smile pointed toward Vinni and Avellana looked strained. “Come along, Cal. I promised to take you home.”
“Thank you, Foo, but I don’t think I’ll be needing voice lessons in the future,” he replied mildly.
She tossed her long, tawny mane and met Vinni’s eyes, if only fleetingly. “Thank you for your advice, GreatLord T’Vine.”
Oh, yes, he made her nervous, and people once again hurried around their little group. He could always sense when people altered their course so they could avoid him.
For this very reason—most people dreaded an impromptu reading.
He gave Foo a half bow. “You’re welcome.”
“We know the Cherrys, who own Cherry Transport,” Avellana offered. “We could set up a meeting.”
Both Cal and Foo gave her an odd look. “We know Raz Cherry very well,” Cal said.
The son of the Cherrys who’d gone his own way. The famous actor. Cal had even had a small part in one of Raz Cherry’s productions, hadn’t he?
Vinni let out a discreet breath. “Merry meet.”
Foo hesitated, as if it hadn’t been, but Cal gave the next line, “And merry part.”
“And merry meet again,” they all finished the small ritual.
With a tug of her hand, Foo hustled Cal off to the rare public carrier that routed through Noble country and to the end of the line outside the Marigold estate. They ran with the energy and abandon of young things and made Vinni feel very, very old at thirty. He glanced at Avellana, who seemed solid and mature, though she might be only a few years older than Foo.
Responsibilities.
He let his shoulders sag. His body had warmed too quickly in the humid summer night’s air and his clothes wicked sweat away, but he hadn’t prepared for an intense vision and his hair felt damp with layered perspiration.
She glanced up at him. “You are tired. Where do you want to go?”
He—or she—could teleport to his suite in his tower, but that would definitely lead to lovemaking and he wasn’t quite sure that either one of them could handle that. They’d both refrained from initiating the HeartBond, and part of that was their current emotional conflict, but they physically yearned for each other.
Loving should be for dream sex only.
And how he suddenly hated that.
“Let’s go to the Thermarum Baths,” he said. The baths and spa springs included both natural, tech, and Flaired pools.
“Yes, we will have a lovely soak, and we can drift down to that tiny nodule of the pool that we like so well,” she agreed, obviously understanding the danger of being alone in either of their homes, too.
On a planet like Celta with high sterility and low birth rate, sex before marriage was expected. How unusual he and Avellana were. He began to think not only unusual but unnatural in not making love to their HeartMates.
The Noble-class baths would keep them on display so they’d keep their hands off each other, but give them a place for private conversation. Not many people would be there this Playday evening, a night with near endless entertainment possibilities.
Though the spa did have popular times for status-seekers and performance artists to see and be seen by the rest of the members and guests, most of society would be at a play or concert or club.
He could imagine the wonderful scent of the natural springs, the small curve of the tiny pool just big enough for the two of them, the blessed heat of the water and the herb-infused silkiness of the liquid against his skin.
Still, the morning had begun with an attack on her and he sensed the lingering darkness of enemies as well as the general malaise of ill-wishers from his Family who didn’t know her as well as they should have.
He sighed, feeling the burden of the continuing mistakes he’d made with her.
Eighteen
She slipped an arm around his waist. “Are you doubting your vision of Cal Marigold’s future? Your Flair?”
He blinked down at her and smiled. “Not this time. I gave him the absolute truth.”
“That is good.” She brushed her lips over his mouth and kissed his cheek. “You will have to call a glider or teleport us. I have not been to the baths often enough to be able to ’port us, though I can give you Flair and energy, of course.”
“Yes,” he murmured. He didn’t tell her that sometimes in the depths of winter, when the days turned gray and snowy and he couldn’t bear the loneliness as Head of the Family, he often went to the baths. Like many places, it held a standard teleportation room with unwavering light. He reached out mentally, found the teleportation pad for the baths, and took them there.
They left the public pad to exit on one side of the main, large kidney-shaped pool, separated from the water by lush hedges. Vinni scanned the area. Though the primary pool looked sparsely populated, most of the couples pools set within the curves appeared occupied.
Then the heightened buzz of conversation abruptly stopped.
“Oh,” Avellana sighed. “I see Bani Horehound here. He and his lover passed us on the sidewalk. They must be talking about us.”
“Me. Talking about me.” Vinni’s lips twisted. “I’m always fodder for a good story.”
To his surprise, she elbowed him and her voice sounded snappish. “What of it?”
“I don’t like it,” he replied with more than a little heat.
She just shook her head. “Muin, you cannot tell me that others with Flair that involves personal human relations do not have acute and impromptu times when their Flair rises.”
He coughed. Her wording provoked the image of how his body would rise at inappropriate times more than his Flair.
A dark glance from her came his way. “We have several friends who might have such a problem. Did you ever speak to anyone else about when their Flair comes unexpectedly in public?”
“No.” But Avellana had a point.
“I would imagine a person would cover when that happens, as anyone would. But you do not have that luxury.”
“No, everyone knows when I go into a trance,” he responded with only a little bitterness. “I wonder if Saille T’Willow’s Flair for matchmaking occurs at inopportune times to distract him.”
“You can ask,” Avellana whispered.
“Yes, I can. You helped put this in perspective.” He squeezed her hand, scanning again for a free couples pool.
She slanted him a look. “Or they could be talking about me. I have recently returned from a long time away, I am your HeartMate, and I have announced I am moving to Multiplicity.” She linked arms with him, smiling up at him. “Let them talk. And the more they talk about Multiplicity the better.”
“Hmm.”
“You said that earlier.”
“I could ask my folk if any want to relocate to Multiplicity. Whenever someone leaves T’Vine Residence we buy property for them, if they want. Or we give them enough gilt to buy property elsewhere.”
“So do the Hazels, though our Family is not as large as yours.”
He nodded, then saw that people had broken into groups and though conversational-toned talk had resumed, a great many discreet glances slid their way.
Avellana sniffed. “We know most of the people here, but no one has waved to us or invited us to j
oin them.”
“Who do you want to talk to?” Vinni asked.
“Just commenting,” she said.
At that moment, a rotund man in the bath uniform of light blue and gold bustled up to serve them.
“Greetyou, GreatLord T’Vine”—a bow from the man, who wore a manager glyph embroidered on his chest and cuffs, then a pivot and a bow to Avellana—“and GreatMistrys D’Hazel.” The man beamed. “So pleased to meet you.”
“Greetyou, GentleSir,” Avellana murmured.
“Is the farthest-west small couples pool off the main pool available?” Vinni asked.
The man’s face folded into disappointment. “I am so sorry, but no. None of the small baths outside are free now, nor will any open up for at least a septhour, GreatLord.” He paused, then gestured to the east. “I do have a private terrace area, changing salons with waterfalls, and, of course, pool, surrounded by latticed flowering plants, very beautiful. Free for the rest of the night.”
Vinni and Avellana gazed where he’d indicated and saw a portion of a tall screen of climbing flowers separating the private area from the rest of the pool.
“Very romantic,” the man pressed.
Though Vinni’s heart jumped at the idea of Avellana and privacy . . . he opened his mouth to refuse when Avellana answered for them. “I am sure that will be fine.”
He was sure he’d lose his battle for control and they’d make love for real.
“You honor us, GreatLord and GreatMistrys.” With a whisk of fingers, the attendant produced the key on his open palm and inclined his torso.
Avellana plucked the bespelled key from his fingers and sauntered in the direction of the man’s pointing hand.
Vinni pulled his gaze from her swaying backside, swallowed, slipped the man a gilt note, and followed. “Thank you, Phae.”
“My pleasure, GreatLord T’Vine.”
He caught up with Avellana as she entered the main doors to the building. Resurgent lust dried his throat, and he’d cleared it twice by the time they reached a fancy door painted green with a large frosted oval glass insert. “This isn’t wise.”
Without even looking at him, she said, “I am tired of being good, Muin.”
Heart Sight Page 18