“Thank you,” she whispered.
He grinned and the shallow dimple appeared in his cheek. Mahri sighed. Since I’m not going to die, she thought, I’m really going to have to do something about this obsession I have for him.
Chapter 8
THE AROMA OF GRILLED PIG-FISH AND CHAKA EGGS filled the tree home, made Mahri wake with a mouth that watered and a stomach that rumbled. She carefully stood, stumbled to the pot shell, and smiled at the muffled sound of a childish voice. She emerged from the room, blinked at the late afternoon sunshine flooding through the open door and watched her niece string a necklace of pearls, feathers, and whatever else suited her fancy, while her mother tended the fire shell.
“Where is he?” croaked Mahri.
Sh’ra’s eyes widened and her rosy mouth formed a silent “O” of surprise. Caria froze and studied her sister with a speculative gleam in her blue-green eyes. “If you mean the Healer, and somehow I’m sure you do, he’s hunting with Wald and Trian. And Jaja went with him.” She added the last comment as if it were a question, for the monk-fish never went with anyone but Mahri.
Mahri ignored the implication and frowned. “For what?”
“More zabba, of course, and any game they might flush that can be put on the grill for dinner.”
Caria laid a platter of food on the rough-hewn table and gestured at Mahri to eat, who collapsed into a chair and wolfed down a chaka egg before she could even taste it. She slowed down to savor the salty taste of the pig-fish.
“S’good,” she mumbled through a full mouth. “I’m beyond famished—how long’ve I been asleep?”
Sh’ra giggled and covered her grin with a chubby hand. Caria ignored the little girl and continued to study Mahri. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she admonished absent-mindedly. Sh’ra gave her aunt a sympathetic grimace. “You’ve been out for three days and I’ve been near bursting with curiosity about this Healer you brought.”
Mahri lowered her head and concentrated on her food. A gust of wind set the seashell chimes that hung near the door to tinkling, carried the sound of women gossiping while doing their wash, men whistling as they constructed a new boat, and children laughing between and betwixt them. It was good to be home.
“I brought you some new shells,” she said, hoping to avoid a conversation about Korl as long as she could. Caria’s face lit up and Mahri’s lips twitched. She’d never understand her sister’s fascination with the common things, the way she studied and categorized them, spent her evenings scratching her findings onto soft bone tablets. But she knew Caria couldn’t resist a new find.
“Snail, clam, oyster, which?”
“Mostly snails.”
Caria sighed. “Those’re usually the most beautiful. They in the boat?”
“Aya.”
Caria gave the child instructions and sent her along to fetch them, but before she left, Sh’ra approached her aunt shyly and placed the finished string in Mahri’s lap. “T’ank you,” she stuttered. “For healin’ me.” Then she turned and stumbled out the door, still weak from her illness but rapidly recovering like only the young could.
Mahri tied the string around her neck, then fisted a hand around the beads and feathers, pushing against her chest as if that would stifle the pain that lay within her heart.
“She’s the same age as Tal’li, when he…” began Caria.
Mahri stiffened. “Don’t go there.”
“You’ve never mourned them, sister. Perhaps if you could, it’d stop tearing you apart.”
“Leave it be, Caria.”
The blonde woman stood and began to clear the dishes, stacking them with intentional clatter in the woven basket she always used when she carried them to the river. Mahri shook her head and rubbed an uncomfortably full belly. Her sister-in-life preferred to take an issue and flay it open like a fish, picking apart the innards and exposing the bones. For some reason she thought that it would somehow make things better and couldn’t understand why anyone would be reticent about sharing her methods.
Mahri took the bittersweet memory of her son and buried it again. She stretched until the joints in her arms quietly popped. “Traveled some new channels, this trip.”
The noise stopped a moment, resumed with much quieter clinks. “Oh, really,”
Mahri leaned back in the chair, fought down another smile at Caria’s feigned nonchalance. “Aya. Had plants and animals living in them that I never saw before.”
Caria shrugged. “Like what?”
“Oh, flowers that exploded. Waters that glowed with rainbows. A big old creature with lots of tongues.”
That did it. Caria dropped the last bone spoon and near landed in Mahri’s lap, peppering her with questions. Mahri answered them all as best she could, even helped her sister to name them when she insisted on adding them to her bone tablet “records.” And when Sh’ra returned there followed another round of questions, until the exhaustion again began to creep into Mahri’s abused body.
“Enough, now,” Caria said, removing her daughter from the redhead’s lap, where she’d insinuated herself during the conversation. “Your aunt and I will have a bath, while you run along and play with Zerik.”
Her niece’s mouth dropped in horror. “You going to wash in the daytime?”
Whether she feared an actual bath or birdsharks, Mahri couldn’t be sure. But as for the winged monsters, she didn’t really care, for just the thought of clear fresh water to soak her aches made her willing to take on a flock of the huge beasts.
“We’ll stay beneath the leaves, darling. Run along, now.”
Sh’ra looked at them both with an expression of genuine puzzlement. When she bolted from the house the two women exchanged a maternal grin.
Mahri began to rummage through the trunk Caria kept for her and forced herself to hum a bawdy tune until her sister-in-life quit examining her with that frown of suspicion. Mahri sighed in relief. She no longer thought of anything but the need to get out of her dirty traveling clothes. Her hand brushed across the softness of green spider-silk, the only true dress she owned. Brez had bought it for her shortly after they’d been mated, said the hue brought out the dark-gold highlights in her red hair. She’d worn it once. With an angry grunt Mahri shook the mass of spider-silk out, refusing to acknowledge that she wanted to wear it just to see the look in the prince’s face when he saw her in it.
“How’d you know?” asked Caria.
“Know what?”
“That we’re planning a celebration tonight. A party to honor you and Korl.”
Mahri rolled the dress into a bundle and strapped it with the belt of her bone staff. “So he told you his name. Does it mean anything to you?”
Caria started for the door, tossed her sister a bow and quiver of arrows, then waved her through the threshold, a frown of puzzled annoyance marring her clear skin. “No, should it?”
“Course not.” Mahri followed Caria around the base of the home tree, then up slanted branch-paths. In the backwoods they wouldn’t recognize that rare name as belonging to the prince and apparently he hadn’t enlightened the villagers as to who he was. Not that it would matter. Swamp villagers didn’t care much for Royals, one way or the other. They usually kept to themselves.
When they reached the smaller limbs near the very top of the tree Mahri dropped her bundle and began to strip, avoiding Caria’s curious gaze.
“Something’s going on,” said the blonde woman, “Between you and this mystery man.”
Mahri strapped her weapons around her bare waist and eyed the sapling that grew next to the home tree. “Why do you keep thinking there’s something mysterious about the Healer?” She grabbed the rope ladder that hung down the side of the small tree and started to climb without waiting for an answer. “Do you have the soap?”
“Yes,” snapped Caria, her voice already far below.
Mahri scrambled over the crown of newly budded leaves and scanned the late afternoon sky with caution. Although the sapling’s fre
sh water cache didn’t have the dangerous depth, nor the perilous garbage-skimmers that the older trees did, they grew so tall to find the sun that they rose above the forest growth—growth which usually hampered the attack of birdsharks. She didn’t spot any dark specks against the clouds and relaxed. All dangers being relatively equal, the villagers preferred the small ponds of sun-warmed water to the frigid lakes of the older trees.
She allowed herself to enjoy the view. Here atop the canopy the sky stretched on forever, the treetops creating a blanket of bumpy green beneath. The crystal blue of the sea lay even farther below, its incessant waters flowing around and through the trunks of the forest, until it spread out to the very edge of the horizon.
Mahri tore her gaze away. A leaf from the home tree had reached over to partially cover the sapling and she hunkered beneath the edge of it. “All clear,” she shouted, setting down her weapons on the dry lip of the treetop.
“I’m right here,” panted Caria, her blonde head popping up over the edge. She removed her belt and set down the soap root, spread the drying cloths over the leaf to warm. Her eyes squinted against the bright sunlight that reflected off the water as she immersed herself, quiet grunts of pleasure sounding from the back of her throat. She walked to almost the middle of the pool before she had to tread water.
Mahri scooted down the shallow bowl until the water covered the top of her breasts and let the warmth of it soak the aches from her body. The bark felt smooth beneath the skin of her bottom, the air smelled spicy and light, and the wind made a gentle roar through the canopy. She might’ve dozed, listening to Caria swimming around the pond, if not for the sudden splash across her face.
“No you don’t!”
“Caria,” she sputtered. “What’s your problem?”
“If you think you’re gonna get out of answering my questions by pretending to sleep…”
Mahri wiped water from her lashes. She might as well give in now—from past experience she knew the woman would pester her to death until she’d told her everything. “Let the flaying begin,” she grumbled.
“What?” Caria sat behind her and began to unbraid Mahri’s long red hair.
The gentle tugging on her scalp felt wonderful and she sighed. “Nothing.”
“Good. Now first things, first. Who is this Healer, anyway? And why’d he agree to help us, and what’s going on between you two? Hold out your hand.” Mahri obeyed and Caria deposited one of the shells that’d been strung through the braid. “Well?”
“What do you mean, what’s going on between us?”
Caria yanked the red mass, hard. “Don’t play games with me, sis. I saw the way you two looked at each other. Now don’t make this anymore difficult for yourself. Fess up.”
Suddenly the words tumbled out and Mahri near stumbled over them. “Nothing’s going on, I swear. It’s just that the journey kind of threw us together in ways that I couldn’t… and I refused to let him get to me… even though I wanted him… but not in my heart? You know?”
“Uh huh, right. Let’s make this easier. Where did you find this Healer?” Caria added another shell to the pile.
Tell her all, tell her some? wondered Mahri. “In the Healer’s Tree.”
“And he agreed to come with you to the swamps?”
“Not exactly.”
The hands untwining her hair stilled. “You didn’t, I mean, have to, give him something to come with you?”
“Not exactly.” Caria tugged hard enough this time to bring tears to Mahri’s eyes. “Oh, all right. I kidnapped him.”
She heard the air whoosh from Caria’s lungs. “You what?”
“I stole him from his bed, chucked him over a balcony and trussed him like a pig-fish.”
Mahri smiled at Caria’s muffled giggle. “But why?” the blonde woman managed to ask.
The wind lapped at the water, made Mahri’s full breasts bob gently. They felt wickedly free from the tight constraints of her vest. “You remember what happened the last time I tried to ask for help, don’t you?”
Both women sobered for a moment, remembering the loss of brother, nephew, life-mate, child. But they both knew it wasn’t a subject they could discuss and allowed the wind to sweep their memories out to sea.
“And I thanked him for agreeing to help us,” said Caria, voice low with disgust. “Why—he’ll be honored at the party tonight!”
Mahri turned her head, met the blue-green eyes with her own olive ones. “Don’t discuss what I tell you with anyone. Swear, or this talk ends now.”
Caria blinked. “I swear. You know you can trust me.”
“Aya.”
“Tell you what; I’ll wash your hair if you explain why this Korl is so… strange.”
“What do you mean?”
Caria spun the redhead around and finished unplaiting the mass of thick hair. She spread it out and Mahri moaned in pleasure.
“I thought I recognized my work,” said Caria. “You haven’t washed this mess since I last braided it, have you?”
“I didn’t exactly have the time.”
Caria snorted.
“I stood in a rain wash for hours.”
Caria snorted louder. She waded over to the thin dry edge of the tree, pounded some soap root into foam and brought it back to Mahri’s head, scrubbing it in with vigorous pleasure.
“Ouch. So what’s so strange about the Healer?”
Caria’s hands gentled as she replied. “He acts so odd, like every time he says something, people ought to jump to do it. And I know city folk aren’t used to the swamps, but he seems downright ignorant of the sea forest… and yet quite intelligent about things we barely understand.”
“He’s a prince.”
“So?”
“That’s what they’re like—used to having everyone bow to them, take care of them. And they focus their talents on the old records.”
“What I wouldn’t give to see a real library! Aah, the envy. No wonder you don’t like Royals.”
“Aya. Worse though, is that this prince has many enemies, many powerful enemies.”
The hands working their way through strands of dark red froze. “You weren’t followed?”
“No.”
“Does he know what you are?”
“Aya.”
“Oh, Mahri, this could get very complicated.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” She stood, so that Caria could wash the rest of her hair. The wind curled around her body and raised gooseflesh, the lavender scent of the soap filled her nostrils and nearby something hooted and growled. “He saved my life, more than once, and did agree to Heal Sh’ra when I promised to return him home.”
“Uh oh.”
“Aya. If I take him back, he could tell them about me.” She sank into the water and leaned her head backward, let her hair spread around her like a dark halo.
Caria worked the soap from the strands. “But he wouldn’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because you’re Bonded to him now.” Caria’s voice lowered. “I meant to thank you before, but words just didn’t seem enough. Still, thank you Mahri. I know what a sacrifice it was for you to tie yourself to anyone that way.”
Mahri sat up, her head tingling with cleanliness. She stuck her face in the water, rubbed briskly, and came up sputtering. “I didn’t think I’d survive it.”
Caria wet her own short locks and fetched more soap. “Well, if anyone strips you of your Power, or if you should die, he’d likely die as well. Or worse, be utterly Powerless. ‘Till death do the Bonded part’ is literal.”
Mahri gasped. “It’s worse than I thought. I can’t believe that I’m tied to that arrogant Royal forever. I’d thought a Bond only a myth, until a few days ago, so I wasn’t sure what it truly meant. Not that it matters now.” She sighed. “Anyway, I haven’t decided what to do about him yet, I’m still trying to figure out what happened before we got here.”
Mahri started to soap her body while Caria rinsed her own hair, sm
oothed the blonde curls back and eyed her sister-in-life with a speculative gleam. “You should cut off some of that,” she said, gesturing at the heavy red hair.
“You know I can’t. Your brother loved it.”
“But he’s… oh, never mind. What happened before you got here?”
“I, um, tried to seduce him.”
“You?”
Mahri nodded.
“The same woman that’s never even looked at another man since my brother—you actually tried to—I don’t believe it.”
“Would you lower your voice?” Mahri spread the lather down her legs, whispered dreamily as she spoke. “I can’t believe it either, but when we were alone together on my boat and he stood near me, he just smelled so good. Looked so good. And then he did this thing with his hair.” She stroked a foamy hand across her abdomen. “It was an innocent gesture… but the way he did it.” She washed her breasts absent-mindedly, thinking of his broad shoulders, that full lower lip. Her hands slowed and she became aware of her painfully hardened nipples, the way Caria stared at her in open-mouthed shock. She dove in the water, stayed under as long as she could to regain control of herself. She’d thought it was his proximity that affected her but the mere thought of him had her acting like an idiot in front of Caria.
“I can’t believe the way I threw myself at him,” she admitted as she swam beneath the leaf.
“Oh, I can,” Caria stood frozen, knee-deep in the water, her hands cupping flaming red cheeks, “after that little display. Don’t look so embarrassed. I’m not. I just got all caught up in your passion. Frankly, I’m glad you’ve finally, er, fallen for another man.”
“I haven’t fallen. I’ll never love again, you know that.”
“All right, call it what you will. But you’ve got it bad Mahri and you’d better decide what to do about it.”
“I thought if I bedded him, it’d take care of it. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You’re right, it could make it worse—” Caria’s mouth dropped with sudden horror as wind buffeted her shoulders and she felt the scrape of talons across her back. Reflexes honed by living in the swamps allowed her to dive forward before the birdshark had the chance to get a good grip on her. The creature shrieked with rage and circled for another attack.
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