Khari'na Made (Muse Book 1)

by Jean Winter

  “Do not despair; thy trials will be but a small moment.

  For all these things I have prepared for thy experience and good.”

  “Believe, believe, believe,” Lyra whispered to herself. “Have faith, Lyra.”

  A pair of gentrywise out the window chirped merrily to each other from the branches of a nearby tree as Lyra rose. It was courting season and time to build a nest together for one precious female chick to hatch and be raised by the two of them. (The single male egg would be laid later in the summer.) Well, where should she begin her sorry-for-the-awkward-rejection-of-sex-last-night-but-look-how-useful-I-can-be-to-you-elsewhere campaign? For a grumpy man, food seemed the obvious choice.

  The kitchen pantry was well-stocked and Lyra quickly got a small fire going in the belly of the oven to start some water boiling on the stove. What did he say last night at Burhnee's? He liked his bean tea black? She wasn't familiar with the dark, ground legume drink popular among the Caldreen'ns. However, following the directions on the can of grinds she found, she did the best she could.

  Next she collected flour, nectar granules, and other ingredients for her sweet muffincakes her family loved. Lyra had to admit it was near heaven working in a kitchen with actual counters, running water from a faucet, cabinets holding a treasure trove of familiar and exotic spices, and much more refined utensils, china, and steelware from what she had always known. It wasn't long before good smells began to waft enticingly from the oven.

  # # #

  He was fool. A stupid, bloody fool!

  Kade lay on his back in bed listening to the sounds of the woman move about his kitchen. No doubt she was hoping to blow over last night's joining consummation disaster with a little served breakfast. Well, it wasn't going to work. Not with the humiliation and disappointment she'd put him through. Blast all that money he had spent on her! And blast him, too, for getting swept up in sappy, schoolboy—no, let's face it, schoolgirl—emotions without thinking things through.

  Oh, he had spent the entire evening playing his part of the starry-eyed dandy to her mysterious siren angel beautifully. Her eyes, the way she moved, how she sounded when she spoke. Even her unknown origins and strange reluctance had been terribly exciting. She'd made him so eager to impress, to bring her around and win her over, that he had become confused with new feelings—protective, possessive feelings. She'd made him care.

  At The Vishke, the imperious Lady Jayn, ostentatious in the sheer amount of jewelry she always wore, had eyeballed Lyra with such self-pride and prejudice while conversing at their table. It was only with great effort he had ignored it at the time. And all those egotistical, groping dance partners! Kade knew that enjoying a little piece of someone else's khar on the dance floor was quite common, but somehow, he had not been okay with it when it was her.

  Lyra had spurred doubts in him, doubts questioning the ethics of the class structure on which his beloved society had thrived for over a hundred years, doubts about how to treat her as his khar, doubts, even, about how to treat her as a woman. Kade remembered her lithe and able defense against Malig'ahnt at the auction arena, the fine muscle tone of her calves under that silky skin he had discovered while warming her in the carriage. She was not like other women. Women were supposed to be soft and delicate, and in need of a man to take care of them.

  But he had liked it. Oh, he had liked it! It disturbed Kade how much he had liked it, and like a fool, he let himself be led along, let himself pretend that, despite the numerous warning signs, he would find with her a special connection, something that transcended the usual surface physical relationship, something more meaningful.

  Then she rejected him.

  Her panic, her tears, her revelation about how she really came to be with the caravan, it had all come crashing down then. Lyra lied to him. She used him to save herself from Malig'ahnt and his thugs, and then made it quite clear, despite everything Kade had done for her, how revolting she found the thought of being with him. She'd trembled in fear of his nearness, cringed at his touch. Even seemed to prefer sleeping on the floor in the closet rather than share the same bed. How she must have been secretly laughing at him all evening. His pathetic sentiments. His silly romantic preparations. With a growl, Kade gripped tighter the comforter at his sides.

  He was a bloody fool, and now he had to wade through the trouble of calling his lawyer to fight the caravan for a full refund. He didn't care that she was new a widow having found herself in unfortunate circumstances. He didn't care that she had begged him to keep her and, in desperation, even practically ordered him to bed her—

  Wait.

  What is that?

  Lifting his head, Kade took another sniff. It smelled good.

  # # #

  The fire in the fireplace was easy enough to start and things were pretty well picked up around the open great room and kitchen, too, but Lyra noticed the fine layer of dust covering many of the surfaces. She would begin there.

  Finding J'Kor's shelf of cleaning supplies and remembering that her mother had always taught her to start at the top and work her way down, Lyra took a sturdy stool to a corner wall and stepped up. She dusted paintings of old people she didn't know and a very large natural landscape of a sandy beach. Then she came to a small, gold-framed portrait of an exquisitely beautiful woman with silky, blond hair and sensuous lips.

  Is this Ahna?

  The door to J'Kor's bedroom suddenly swung open and Lyra almost fell off the stool at the sound. She thought she had prepared mentally for their first inevitable encounter of the day. She thought she was prepared to meet his gaze with a brave dignity. But as Lyra turned her tumble into an ungraceful hop to the floor and humble bend of the knee for her “master,” she knew she wasn't quite pulling it off. Her heart pounded in her chest at his silent bore into the top of her bowed head. How bad was it going to be?

  “Good morrow, my lord.” She wasn't about to ask if he had slept well.

  No answer. Lyra carefully lifted her eyes. J'Kor's tall, stolid frame was vestured in a thin, snug-fitting undershirt overlapping the waistband of a pair of heavy, work pants. The sun-tinged hair tossed untidily about his head reminded her more of the man she had first met in Bansool, but the piercing eyes that took in her appearance were cold as ice.

  “I—I didn't know what else to wear,” she said.

  Interminable seconds rolled by. Lyra went back to memorizing the grain pattern in the wood floor until a short grunt of acknowledgment followed by footsteps turning toward the kitchen released her. She left her dust plume on the stool and hastened to the stove to pour him a cup of tea.

  Muffincakes she had been keeping warm under a towel on top of the stove were placed on a small plate and taken to the place setting she had made ready at the dining table. “I hope the tea is acceptable, my lord. I don't know what you normally prefer for morning repast, but I hoped you might like these.” Lyra pulled the chair out for him, which he took with reserve.

  Along with the usual accoutrements, Lyra had also poured a cup of milk, placed a generous pat of butter to the side, and had peeled and sectioned some red citridew for him. She watched with trepidation his first sip of the tea. Fortunately, J'Kor appeared to find it satisfying enough and soon began to quietly—or rather sullenly—dig in to her peace offering while Lyra inconspicuously went back to her dusting.

  Eventually he finished and, still not saying a word, headed down the home's one hall. Lyra noted with relief, however, the emptiness of his plate and absence of several more of her spongy, billberry flavored muffincakes from the warming plate. That was a good sign.

  Other than deliberate footsteps at one point from one room to another, little was heard from him for the next while. Lyra washed and dried dishes, put everything away in perfect order, then began the bedroom candle cleanup he'd ordered last night, using the boxes filled with protective tissue she'd found on the pantry floor.

  It wasn't until she was back in the great room, stacking the last packed box on top of the ot
hers, that J'Kor finally returned. His hair was combed, his undershirt tucked. The accusatory sulking shadowing his entire being had been refreshed, as well. Lyra bent her head humbly as he passed.

  Settling himself into his leather armchair by the fireplace, J'Kor's fingers took up an impatient drumming pattern on the arm rests. “'Na Lyra,” he finally said. “There is a garden behind the house I wish you to tend. It needs clearing and turning for spring planting.”

  “Of course, my lord.” Phew! Lyra hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath.

  Another moment of stone silence passed, then he got up and left for the bedroom. Lyra began to follow to prepare herself for going outside, until the sight of her backpack still leaning against the dining chair's ribbed back stopped her. Perhaps she should stow it somewhere now. Surely that vanity closet owned some good nooks and crannies where odd objects could conveniently become lost to memory.

  J'Kor was donning a rough-textured work tunic over by the wardrobe when Lyra quietly entered the closet. A small window to the left of the vanity offered a view of green pasture where creamy white ewes grazed, larger with fuller, denser wool than anything she had ever known. In the distance, thick woods breathed down upon the border fence that kept the young lambs in check as they frolicked about, their solid ebony coats a stark contrast to their snowy mothers. Hmm, strange.

  Back to her search, Lyra spied a few hiding possibilities behind certain clothing and storage boxes. A space behind the vanity seemed worth exploration as well, but not while J'Kor was still just beyond the door. Instead, Lyra retrieved from a side pocket of her backpack a small jar of cream she always kept handy there—her homemade concoction of rayblock cream.

  Her mother's crisp voice from childhood played in her mind as she applied the rusty yellow mixture to her nose. You don't want to have wrinkly, patchy skin by the time you're thirty, she would say. Of course, that kind of harping was lost on a nine-year-old. Thirty was a million years away, and by that time you were really old anyway, so why did it matter? But Lyra had obediently obliged with the religious use of it. Her mother had given her no choice. It just became habit after—

  “What on Henna's dark side, is that smell?”

  Lyra jumped to J'Kor's fully dressed outline suddenly filling the door, brow furrowed, and scowl waiting for an explanation.

  Oh dear. Lyra replaced the jar's lid. “Sorry, my lord. This is just a home remedy to protect from sunburn. I've been using it all my life. I know it's a little pungent.”

  “Pungent?” he echoed. “Did your husband have no sense o' smell at all?”

  Anger began to prickle behind Lyra's eyes. “Well, he never seemed to mind—”

  J'Kor stomped away, but was back shortly to toss a bottle of something in her direction. Lyra caught it with one hand. “Try that. You must no' have noticed it in your toiletries basket in the lavatory.” Then he marched away, grumbling, “No khar o' mine is going to be walking around smelling like churung piss …” right out the front door.

  Well, at least it didn't sound like he was getting rid of her just yet. Lyra had feared he was wiring his lawyer earlier. In part relief and part shaky resignation, she looked down at the bottle of white cream in her hands. J'Kor keeping her was good. Of course, that also meant he still intended for her to be his khari'na. Her fingers tightened around the bottle.

  She could do this. Last night had just been scarier than expected—being touched in that way for the first time by someone else. The next time wouldn't be such a shock and Lyra was confident she could get over it. She had to. Her life and the Tohmu'vah depended on it.

  J'Kor's cream had hardly any odor at all. Then Lyra brought her own reopened jar to her nose. Oh, my! The difference was startling and it suddenly dawned on her that this stuff may have been another one of her graceless boy deterrents from the pre-teen and teen years. She had been using it so long she must have grown used to it. Why hadn't Jon ever said anything?

  The top choice for stashing the precious Tohmu'vah in its sealed box ended up being along a top shelf behind some old linens that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Her backpack with its few remaining contents Lyra left propped against the side of the mirrored vanity desk. She wanted it where she would see it every day to remind her of home and her eventual goal.

  On the front porch of the J'Kor family homestead, Lyra stretched inquisitive fingers into the ocean of sunlight beyond the roof's shadow. Ah! It was going to be a nice day. She shrugged off the shawl then noticed a pair of light work gloves and a woven, wide-brimmed hat resting on the slightly bowed top step. J'Kor was working with his dog among the sheep out in the pasture, but when their eyes met he paused, waiting until Lyra had picked up the accessories. With a curt nod he returned to his work.

  The garden behind the house was easy to spot: a generously-sized, rectangular lot of cultivated beds and furrows of earth, fenced in to keep out the ruddy and white cuckoo-barred, domesticated chickcocks that pecked at the ground outside. In straight mounded rows, brittle stalks and vine growth from last season's crops teetered like rickety skeletons. A spade and long-handled rake leaned upright against the gate, welcoming Lyra to her day's task.

  The garden's crumbly, black soil held together in a loose clump in her hand before a shift of her palm caused it to fall away in irregular, soft clods through her fingers. Lyra regarded this perfect consistency with envy. It had been years in the making—not like the rocky clay of the Forkor Mountains her people had to render anew every couple years when the Army of Caldreen necessitated yet another move of the colony. This was going to be cake compared to that crusty, boulder-ridden dirt.

  Last year's tough, fibrous growth had to be cleared first and Lyra started a burn pile in the corner. She actually liked these kinds of seasonal projects. They had a beginning and an end, and didn't need to be started all over again the next day.

  Pulling. Hoeing. Turning. Under Geniven's warm sun, Lyra began to perspire as she got pleasantly lost in the honest, manual labor. The confounded skirt made a nuisance of itself while digging in with the spade so Lyra finally hitched it up even higher, swearing to herself that when she escaped back to her people, her first order of business would be to burn this cursed emblem of Caldreen'n “civility.”

  That brought her back to her current predicament and how said escape might be orchestrated.

  Really, what did she need more than just a day when J'Kor was gone from sun up to sun down? She could certainly run the ten miles needed to exceed her tracker's range in a couple hours, and if she had several more hours beyond that to make more distance, maybe it would just be enough to elude any pursuers until she could reach the Forkors. Grally's warning regarding the government's success rate at finding runaways haunted her, but Lyra had to believe that somehow she could be smarter, stronger, faster. And with God's help on her righteous errand, she could succeed. Certainly.

  The need for her implant's power cell to be recharged every five years so that it didn't kill her could be addressed later … after she was home … and reunited with her children and other family and friends.

  The sun was high overhead when Lyra let the spade fall to the ground before the loosened and turned rows. She stretched her back to the great joy of her tired muscles and glimpsed J'Kor entering a long, low-slung shed, dog at the heels. He might want her to prepare his midmeal now, but she'd better ask first. She couldn't afford to make any mistakes in the work he anticipated of her.

  The unlatched door opened easily to a cool interior lined with cages down the long walls—about twenty in all. Oh, a rabbitry! Plump, very densely-furred rabbits moved about their roomy cages, grunting and chirping softly to each other. Some were caged singly, some not. Their solid coats varied between deep oranges and slate blue, but they all possessed the usual long ears with funny white tufts at the ends. J'Kor was at the far end, his back to her, as he opened a particularly large cage.

  The rattle from the fifteen- to twenty-pound critters hopping about their wire
mesh flooring and the thickly hayed floor masked Lyra's footsteps as she made her way down the central aisle to where J'Kor had taken a half grown, ocher-furred rabbit to a sturdy table along the back wall. She was about make her presence known when he laid a hand ceremoniously over the rabbit's head, chanted something—a line or phrase, and then thud!

  The sharp blow from J'Kor's heavy wooden club at an angle behind the ears disconnected the skull from the spine in an instant. Lyra's stomach flipped. No, wait! Calm down. He's just butchering it. You've helped butcher animals—

  Thwack! In another second, he had severed the head entirely from the body with a gleaming hatchet. Then, chanting again, J'Kor raised the head to catch a few drops of draining blood in his mouth. Uh, now that is definitely not— Of their own will, Lyra's feet began to shuffle her back toward the entrance. When J'Kor swallowed the blood and tossed the fuzzy-eared mazard to the waiting Ahskr who eagerly snapped it up it in mid-air, Lyra's exit became a full retreat.

  Memories and images flashed before her eyes with the sudden, blinding light outside: the eerie green glow of J'Kor's palm during last night's hijacking, his dismissive explanation about an “old skill set,” the brief, passing references to a mentor conjurer and curse incantations. That oscekhiss tattoo. So much of the man was still a mystery! But with a deep, calming breath, Lyra also made herself remember that the Father had sent her to him in His own wisdom.

  However, perhaps she would remember that out here. In the comfort of open space. And daylight. If he wanted her to go back inside to start food, he'd tell her himself. Until then she could find some useful job to help work out this nervous energy.

  A woodpile against the side of the house caught Lyra's eye. The stacked rounds practically screamed to be split, and wedged in the chopping block was an ax. Perfect.

  Having done her fair share of wood chopping through the years, Lyra worked fast and hard. Taking out her worries on a piece of wood with a heavy, sharpened object was a great way to relieve tension and with another hearty swing, she cut the next round clean through.