Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) (24 page)

“Yes, FamCat.”

Ooooh. Special food!

“Some is special, some is regular,” TQ said. “I have a most beautiful HouseHeart and most modern.”

“I’m sure,” Tiana murmured, then saw a large rectangular metal door a few paces before her, and she hurried and followed her Fam in.

The first thing she saw as the door closed behind her was a large holo mural of Maroon Beach, surf ebbing and flowing in ceaseless wondrous pattern. So she faced west. Good to know.

“If you will sit on the hearth, Felonerb, I will waft some cleansing smoke at you.”

Felonerb hissed.

“And we will feed you,” Tiana said, removing her shoes and liners, unsurprised to see that thick and richly patterned Chinju rugs layered the floor. Light emanated from the walls in a dim and comforting glow.

“My cat-smoking cleanser is a new tech and well regarded.”

Her Fam sidled toward the thick sandstone slab of the raised hearth.

“It has several scents,” TQ continued. “Including lavender, sage . . .”

A sniff.
I don’t like those.

“And some herbs that might not smell nice to a cat, but attract prey, such as celtaroons.”

Felonerb’s eyes widened.
REALLY?

“Yes,” TQ said.

The tom hopped onto the stone, kept to the edge as fire flickered into flames.

Tiana said, “I think Felonerb, who just kill—triumphed over great prey, should not need any celtaroon pheromones or whatever, right now, TQ.”

Her Fam scowled.

“I’ll need your support in a while,” she said. “I’d prefer to have you pleasant smelling.”

Felonerb lifted his nose, twitched his whiskers.
For you, I will have a different smell.

“Thank you.”

“I have a range of fragrances,” TQ said. “I shall demonstrate.”

They settled on the scent of flatsweet dough. While TQ billowed the cleansing smoke smell over Felonerb, Tiana took the time to scrutinize the room. Roughly six meters square, murals graced two walls. The north showed a lush jungle garden with thick-trunked trees and ferns growing around a turquoise pool fed by a narrow waterfall over rock. As she stared, figures moved in the trees and came to face her, raised hands as if greeting her, and either lingered at the side of the mural or walked back into the tree shadows.

People she’d seen at GreatCircle Temple now and then such as Mitchella D’Blackthorn, Tinne and Lahsin Holly showed up. She blinked when her sister and brother-in-law, Artemisia and Garrett, sat on a stone bench near the pool, smiling at each other, then at her.

A boy peered at her from under shaggy hair, expression stormy, keeping close to a fern frond as tall as he was.

Tiana stared. “That looks like Antenn Blackthorn-Moss, but much younger.”

“Yes. He has not come back for a long time. But he’ll be here today. In under two septhours!” TQ’s voice lilted with pleasure. “I’ll be glad to see him.”

“I’m sure.” The sight of the boy hurt her inside. Surely he’d been here at TQ not long after he’d lived in the slums Downwind. He looked distrustful, wary. Needing love.

Had her image been taken at the same age, she’d have been happy, sure in the love of her Family. And despite all they had lost, they hadn’t lost the love they held for each other. She was truly blessed in that.

She glanced at the wall with Maroon Beach and the surf again, the mural of the garden—surely somewhere in the southern continent—then looked at the wall holding the door, walked over to touch the pale-yellow silkeen wallpaper, smooth under her fingers. The pattern showed curving lines of light-green leaves and stylized crownlike blooming flowers of blue with two red lower petals. The same pattern as a room in BalmHeal Residence. Near each corner stood weeping willow trees.

“I have a Fam here, too,” TQ said. “Look closely.”

T
iana did and saw a small gray and white tabby with black stripes painted on the wall, though there seemed to be an added holo dimension to it. It was difficult to see since it blended with the wallpaper.

“A cat!” She slid into a cross-legged position on the floor. “How pretty it is!”

“She,” said TQ. “She lives off my energy, but I have enough to spare for her, and with all the visitors yesterday, she has enough to move a little, see?”

A tiny “mew” came, and then her right ear angled slightly.

“Oh, lovely!” Tiana cooed and reached out and touched the green spot between the cat’s equally green eyes. A tingle brushed her fingertips with Flair, but she sent some of her edginess to the cat and
almost
thought she received a vibration of appreciation in return.

Felonerb harumphed from his place on the hearth and leapt toward Tiana with a draft of sweetness. “Do we have sugar flatsweets here?” she asked.

“Of course. In my no-time as part of the altar.”

Her mouth watered, and she got one. When she turned to ask Felonerb if he needed more food, she saw that he sat a few centimeters from the cat on the wall, tail flicking, staring at the small gray tabby.
I think she needs some imperfections
, he said, jealousy rippling from him, surprising Tiana. She’d thought he’d treasured every scar of his.

“No,” said TQ. “She is as perfect and beautiful just as she is. When we have enough energy for her to come out of the wall is soon enough for her to look different. I like her very well as she is.”

Tiana’s Fam stood and ostentatiously turned his back on the cat, walking toward the no-time.

She has FLOWERS tinted on her
, Felonerb said.

Tiana thought she saw the wall cat blink.

Felonerb sat on Tiana’s foot and purred loudly.

“She likes her red and blue and green and yellow tinting,” TQ said. “
We
like her tinting. You are not to be listened to in this matter.”

I will have some shredded furrabeast steak
, the tom said.

Tiana stared down at her. He grinned, then added,
Please
.

“TQ?”

“Of course Felonerb Mugwort can be fed. But he is not allowed to disparage my Fam.”

“No. You understand, Felonerb?” She got out a small dish of food.

He stood and his back rippled.
I will say nothing bad about stup—about Wall Cat.
He began to gulp down the food.

The interchange and the wonderful ambience of the place relaxed Tiana so she stilled for a moment. Lived.

Moved by the sound of the surf, the tinkle of wind chimes, she drifted to the center of the room and grounded herself, breathed deeply, cleared her mind, and let her cares fall away, her body ease.

Here, between quiet breaths, the slight tease of whirling air, she felt the Divine. So she lifted her arms and uttered a quiet, peaceful prayer, drawing in energy from that which was greater than she, and releasing it into her surroundings, to enrich the atmosphere and sink into the Turquoise House.

Felonerb rumbled a purr, and when she opened her eyes, his eyes appeared brighter, his fur slightly sleeker, his bones less prominent.

A low humming permeated the air, and she understood it came from the House itself. On a whisper of a wind chime, TQ whispered, “Thank you very much. I have not often had such an experience. You blessed me.”

She had. “The One who came through me, blessed you.”

“Yes.” Breeze soughing through trees—the trees of the murals? The ones outside the door? Archetypical trees?—replaced a sigh from the House. “I thank you now, and I thank you for all the rituals you will perform for me in the future.” TQ hesitated. “I am sorry to say that you have twenty minutes before beginning your ritual cleansing for the regression.”

Just that easily, she found her teeth clenching. “Thank you.” Scooping up Felonerb, she hustled out the door, threaded through the woods and up the stairs. She lay down on the new bed for a quarter septhour and relaxed every muscle she had in sequence until the timer rang to tell her that she must prepare for her ordeal.

After a quick waterfall infused with the best herbs TQ could provide for cleansing and calming, Tiana stood under a skylight streaming sunlight to naturally dry her—faster because of a spell in the glass. Wonderful luxury. She could become accustomed to these extravagances all too easily.

When she sent the last of her anticipatory concern from her body into the grounding mat beneath her bare feet, she opened her eyes, completely tranquil, and hoped to keep that state until she was regressed to the terrible night . . . keep emotions at a distance, something to observe but not allow to influence her.

She saw Felonerb hunched over with narrowed eyes and bared teeth, staring at the waterfall enclosure, and smiled. Such an archetypical cat she had. Yes, she finally understood that was why he was sent to her. Primal cat.

His eyes shifted to meet hers.
You will not put ME in ANY water at ANY time.

“No,” she agreed, shaking her head and sending, perhaps, two droplets flying.

“Eeeek!” Felonerb leapt to his feet and backward, straight out of the waterfall room, using Flair.

“It didn’t hurt you,” Tiana said, drawing on a white robe, embroidered in white, that she used for summer rituals. The simple garment would do well for the Intersection of Hope ceremony, too.

“Phhpptt.” Felonerb stuck out his tongue.
This flatsweet smoke smells tasty but it is NOT.

“Hmm,” said TQ. “We should consider taste, perhaps—”

No more smoke now! Maybe I will try. Later. I am clean now.

“Tomorrow, then.”

Maybe.

Another exchange that amused her, wrapping her in cheer. Yes, positive emotions were even better shields to walk into this experience than serenity.

“Are you going to stay with me and help me when I regress, Felonerb?”

He sat straight.
I am your Fam. Yes. I will be with you.
His tail lashed.
You do not need to worry. I will protect You!

Pleasure at his loyalty seeped into her. Yes, archetypical cat, and archetypical Fam.

“Just memories. Let’s go.”

Felonerb lifted his muzzle.
I am your FamCat. I am with you.

“Thank you.”

*   *   *

A
ntenn’s muscles tightened again as the glider passed through TQ’s gates, and though he didn’t hear them close behind him, in his mind they clanged shut with the force of thunder.

Wisps of the mental redesign of the inner cathedral columns vanished as he focused again on Tiana.

He’d definitely been roped in as a witness to more of her distress, to the worst night of her childhood, probably the worst night of her life.

And here he was at the Turquoise House. The glider stopped, and he locked the stands but continued to sit in his vehicle. The small stone courtyard held a Temple glider and a Healer’s glider but nothing from the guardhouse. Yet.

Here he was. After years. At the Turquoise House, which pretty much corresponded to a major change in
his
life, and the most roiling emotions.

He’d met Mitchella Clover here, papyrus in hand, to ask her to adopt him. He’d been all too aware of his past as a gang member . . . if there’d been a status below Commoner, he’d been it.

The Turquoise House, glowing so boldly, had seemed just like him . . . the lowest of the low in Houses. He’d thought that he and Mitchella Clover would live there, her brokenhearted from walking away from her HeartMate, him not
quite
a “real” Clover kid. He’d been struggling to define himself,
become
, quickly, a different boy. Grow.

They’d moved to the Clover Compound; he’d been accepted into the huge Family and had worked in and with the infant Turquoise House for only a few weeks. Straif T’Blackthorn had come around, married Mitchella, and taken them both to T’Blackthorn Residence.

Now Antenn’d finally returned, and the bright shine of the place to his eyes and his mind continued to symbolize that explosive and fearful period of his life.

A glider parked beside him and he looked over to see his cuz Trif Clover Winterberry’s HeartMate, Ilex Winterberry, now the Chief of all the guards of Druida City. Hiding a wince, Antenn undid the safety web, lifted his door, and went around to hug the man whom he hadn’t seen for a few days. Ilex pounded his back, and Antenn was deeply grateful that his burn was better and that he’d have Family witnessing with him.

“How much do you know about this?” Ilex asked as they walked to the door.

“Probably not as much as you do. Garrett Primross is running the show. I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Do you know FirstLevel Priestess Tiana Mugwort well?”

“I met her two days ago when she was assigned to me and the Chief Ministers of the Intersection of Hope as a liaison to GreatCircle Temple.”

Ilex grunted. “All right, we’ll go through this whole rigmarole of oaths, et cetera. You can witness.”

“You sure? Maybe you should dismiss me?”

Ilex’s cool blue-gray gaze met his. “If I must do this, you must do this.”

The door swung open. “Greetyou, Chief Winterberry. Greetyou, Antenn,” TQ said in the smoothest of tones. The last time Antenn had heard the House, it had been speaking with Mitchella’s voice. Big difference.

“Greetyou, Turquoise House,” he and Ilex said at the same time.

The entryway appeared larger and was minimally furnished, along with the sitting room beyond.

“Please take a right at the corridor and go to the end and turn right once more. I have set up and furnished a temporary meditation room for this event.”

Antenn’s steps had slowed. He recalled the layout, of course, and the outer walls hadn’t changed, but he believed that most of the non-load-bearing walls had been moved or removed all together.

Ilex opened the door and went in first. This particular chamber had no windows outside, but the walls had holo murals that appeared like they were in the center of GreatCircle Temple and the dome had been opened to let in the fierce rays of the summer sun and the deep infinite blue sky. Within a pace, Antenn’s foot bumped against a thick bedsponge that covered the floor. He stopped and pulled off his shoes and liners and stepped up. His toes curled under and he glanced around.

High Priest T’Sandalwood sat cross-legged and straight-spined on a fat floor pillow made of a carpet in rich shades of brown and gold with an ornate pattern of black. Though his expression appeared impassive, Antenn sensed the man was not pleased with the situation.

A young journeywoman in Healer green whom he didn’t recognize sat in the farthest corner, wide-eyed and excited, nearly rocking on her green pillow-seat.

With a grunt, Ilex went to a pillow at right angles to the empty crushed red velvet pillow in the middle—Tiana wasn’t there yet—and Antenn grabbed a blue pillow against the wall and sat close to his cuz-in-law.

Garrett Primross sat on the bedsponge on the other side of the velvet pillow.

“Since we are all here, shall we conclude the formalities before I inform FirstLevel Priestess Mugwort that it is time?” TQ asked.

They went through the long and tedious process of stating their names and swearing that none of them had been involved in the events of the night in question—except Ilex, who had arrived on the scene to investigate after the mob had dispersed.

They also stated their current relationship with Tiana, and only T’Sandalwood, who was one of her immediate superiors, and Garrett Primross, who was her brother-in-law, were considered “close.” To Antenn’s surprise, TQ sounded a little disappointed to be named as an impartial witness.

The door opened and Tiana walked in, dressed in a simple, flowing robe of white, her long hair unbound and damp and feet bare.

Antenn’s breath simply stopped. Here in this room, with no outside influences, her serenity glowed in her aura, even under these circumstances.