Herd Mistress (In Deception's Shadow Book 2) (12 page)

“Together, do you understand, Shadowdancer? We live or
die together. It’s your choice. I would prefer to live, though.”

“So would I, stubborn human.”
Shadowdancer’s faint mind voice came as a welcome
distraction from the feeling of having her life force siphoned away.

A Lupwyn’s voice drifted over Sorsha’s bowed head,
momentarily drowning out Shadowdancer’s words. “It is out of my hands their
fates are now tied together.”

Sorsha rejoiced. The Lupwyn couldn’t stop her.

“Shadowdancer,”
Sorsha whispered into his mind.
“My Larnkin says if you shapeshift you will
heal physically, and that will take some of the strain off your Larnkin, perhaps
enough to save itself.”

“A noble plan, little one. But my Larnkin doesn’t have
the power required to shape shift. Let me go. I will only drag you along with
me into death.”

“No. I can heal you. Just give me a little more time.”

“Sorry,”
Shadowdancer spoke in a weakening mental voice.
“...I fear I’ve lost this
battle.”

“I’ll fight for both of us, then.”
Sorsha wasn’t certain if she had thought that or if
it was her Larnkin.

“What are you…?”

Time for one last frantic act. Perhaps the most
foolhardy thing she’d ever done.

The magic she’d been directing to Shadowdancer now
collected in a small pool of silver flames dancing above the plush spring
grass. Magic snapped up through the air, its hissing power angry and primeval.
A cool breeze blew. Wisps of Sorsha’s hair plastered against her sweaty cheeks
as an archway to the Wild Path burst into being. Power flowed from the open
gateway, across the space between them and swept into Sorsha. Her breath caught,
cold power burned along her body, and her Larnkin drank deeply.

The outside world faded away; only the ropes of power
tying her Larnkin to Shadowdancer’s had any substance. She bowed over those
glowing, silvery ropes and poured all her newfound strength and will into
strengthening them. Then she called to him, his soul, his Larnkin. He resisted,
the last rebellious spark of his spirit and consciousness blocking her.

“I won’t let you kill yourself.”

“And I won’t let you die.”

Her power reached out, her soul exposed to him,
welcoming his spirit, offering his Larnkin shelter, a home outside of his host
or the Spirit Realm, a place where the Larnkin could knit itself back together.

Nothing happened for several heartbeats. Had her power,
her call, not been enough?

Then Shadowdancer’s body shuddered and something
foreign and warm slipped within her. An intense burning sensation assaulted
several points throughout her body. Her breath exploded from her lungs in a
shocked hiss.

In that moment she knew for certain she was holding
her soulmate. Shadowdancer would have been her bondmate in this life. Just as
Sorntar and Ashayna were linked heart, soul and power, Sorsha would have had the
same link with Shadowdancer.

Shadowdancer’s thoughts were hers, and together they
grieved at Fate’s cruel edge. To know they had such potential, only to lose it,
their Larnkins now too crippled to ever form such a bond in this life.

“I don’t care,”
she whispered into his thoughts.
“You are the keeper of my heart. If
we live, it is yours.”

His spirit stroked hers, a caress full of love and acknowledgement.

“I will guard your love well.”

Time shifted, flowing ever onward. Her senses
registered the death of one day, the birth of night and then the rebirth of
another dawn. His Larnkin stirred within her, mended enough to live...though
not truly healed, she knew. With regret, she allowed Shadowdancer’s soul and
his Larnkin to flow back into his body. Loss filled the place he’d been, but
the physical world intruded. The ache of sitting in the same position, muscles
stiff, the ground cold underneath her, made itself known at last.

Opening her eyes enough to peer between her lashes,
she raised a hand to shade them from the bright glare of magic intensifying
around Shadowdancer’s body.

His head was still a solid weight in her lap for a
moment more, before the burden vanished as he shifted into shimmering mist. The
magic flared, blinding her for a few moments. Even before her vision cleared, a
solid weight settled against her legs.

Blinking back tears, she looked down to find
Shadowdancer...human...but alive. Her arms tightened around his shoulders. She
dragged him closer, cradling his head against her breast. His chest rose and
fell in the deep even rhythm of sleep.

“Rest now, love.” She pitched her voice low so only he
would hear.

A persistent droning woke Sorsha. The annoying sound
might actually be soft drumming, but her brain hurt too much to decipher the
difference. She rested on her side, her arms and legs dead weights, her eyelids
too heavy to open. She lay still for several moments attempting to remember how
she had come to be there. Slowly, too slowly, it began to trickle back to her a
piece at a time.

Tomb Guards. Lamarra’s capture. Shadowdancer carrying
Sorsha to safety. Then Grey Spire’s defenses activating and nearly killing them
both. The Wild Path and the Wardlen. Shadowdancer almost dying. And…and…holding
his Larnkin within her body, sheltering his soul while she healed him.

Light’s mercy. Had it really happened or was it a
dream?

Despite her tiredness, Sorsha struggled to open her
stiff, puffy eyelids. Blinking rapidly helped her blurry surroundings come into
sharper focus. She was in a tent. By the drying herbs suspended from the
ceiling and the medicinal scent permeating the air, it was likely a place of
healing. The sound she’d heard upon first waking was actually the steady sound
of rain. Wind blew out of the east in damp, fierce gusts, shaking the
pavilion’s stout support poles and clawing at its heavy cloth walls.

Shadowdancer lay in a narrow bed across from her, still
as human as she. On his opposite side, a woman of indeterminate age, one Sorsha
mistook as a fellow human at first glance, was bent over Shadowdancer’s bed,
whispering in a soft melodious voice. There was something strange about the
woman’s fluffy, jet black hair. It wasn’t until the woman tilted her head as if
listening that Sorsha noticed one strand had shifted away from the rest of the
dark mass, solving the mystery. A long ebony feather dangled down over the
woman’s collar bone to gently brush the embroidered neckline of her honey
colored vest. The last person she’d seen with plumage like that had been
Ashayna’s Phoenix bondmate. This strange woman didn’t have the wings or broad
tail of a Phoenix, but Sorsha would bet her favorite bow this woman was some
kind of mixed bloodline.

Shadowdancer nodded his head ever so slightly at the
woman’s questioning tone. Sorsha hadn’t realized he was awake until then.

Sorsha needed to hold him, to feel the beat of his
heart. The compulsion was unreasoning and impossible. Her body wouldn’t obey
her brain’s commands. Involuntarily, a small sound of frustration escaped her.
Both Shadowdancer and the stranger looked over at her.

“I can’t move.” A note of fear crept into her voice.
“Shadowdancer?” It came out more plea then question. She needed him, needed him
to come to her, hold her, hear the reassurance in his soothing mind voice.

Emotions flirted across his face—worry, then grief,
and finally what might be guilt.

“Shadowdancer?”

He struggled with his blanket and she thought he was
trying to come to her. Tears glimmered on his lashes. His expression changed to
despair. He flailed, sending his pillow onto the floor. A brutal, savage sound
escaped him. Rolling onto his side, he managed to gain his feet. He grasped his
head and swayed, took one awkward step forward and another. But instead of
coming around the end of his bed, he hurried away from her.

“Shadowdancer?”

He broke into a run, stumbling across the tent. A
table of polished dark wood and a set of chairs blocked the most direct route
of escape and he tossed the chairs out of his path. A careless flail of his arm
sent a rack of drying herbs crashing to the floor. As he ducked around one of
the tent’s support poles, his shoulder slammed into it. The entire structure
shivered with the impact and a mage globe lamp suspended from the ceiling
swayed.

Shadowdancer paused at the tent’s entrance and leaned
his forehead against a wooden pole, resting.

Not once did he look up at her, and after a moment he
stumbled outside.

The emptiness within her widened.

Desperate for answers, Sorsha swung her gaze from
where she’d seen Shadowdancer vanish to where the stranger still stood
silently. “Who are you? What’s wrong with Shadowdancer? And why can’t I move?”

“Easy. You’re still in shock,” the woman said as she
skirted Shadowdancer’s abandoned bed and came to stand next to Sorsha’s. “My
name is Neveyah; I’m the Herd Mistress of the Bronze Sedge Herd—Shadowdancer’s
family herd. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you and Shadowdancer first arrived.”

“A Herd Mistress? They...Shadowdancer and
Darkmoon...both said I am one as well, or, at least, I used to be. Why did
Shadowdancer run off?”

“And you very well might be a great Herd Mistress
again one day. But for now you’ve put your body under far too much strain, so
rest, and heal. I’ll talk with Shadowdancer.” Neveyah reached out and stroked a
lock of hair out of Sorsha’s face. “Easy now. Everything will be alright.”

“What happened….with Shadowdancer?” The words were all
she could squeeze out and even then it was with a voice tight with tears.

The newcomer’s dark brows lifted. “Why, dear, you
managed the impossible. You saved Shadowdancer and preserved enough of your Larnkin’s
power to recover with your mage gift intact. Though, it’s too early to tell how
long your recovery will take.” The Herd Mistress tugged the blankets more
firmly around Sorsha’s shoulders. “By all that is known among the healers of
flesh and spirit, what you did in your weakened state should have been
impossible. You summoned an archway and siphoned power from the Wild Path. Even
at full strength……” The woman made a strange, almost bird-like, chuckling sound
of admiration.

“That was my Larnkin’s doing. Tell me about
Shadowdancer.”

Neveyah stilled her fussing with the blanket and
looked in the direction Shadowdancer had fled. A deep sigh lifted her
shoulders. When she looked back at Sorsha, her eyes were thoughtful. “You saved
Shadowdancer’s life, but he is crippled. He’ll never again be more than human.
That news is not sitting well with him.”

“He hates me for what I did, doesn’t he?”

The Herd Mistress’s expression softened. “He doesn’t
hate you. I doubt he knows what he’s thinking or feeling at the moment. He,
too, is still in shock. But I know the mind of a Stallion Mage. As he is now,
he’ll be feeling trapped and weak and useless. He’s human and he doesn’t know
how to be human. He’ll need your help more than ever, but he won’t want it.”

“I must…” Sorsha couldn’t finish the sentence. She no
longer knew what she needed. Her heart said she needed Shadowdancer, but she’d
seen the look he’d given her. As much as she wanted to believe the Herd
Mistress, Sorsha had seen Shadowdancer’s expression clearly. There had been a
glimmer of hate.

“Ah, I understand,” Neveyah said. She stood and
brushed smooth the supple leather of her knee length skirt. “I’ll return
momentarily.” With a somber nod, she walked in the direction Shadowdancer had
gone and vanished outside.

Sorsha was happy to be alone, or should have been, she
told herself. Tears pricked her eyes. At least there was no one to see her
weakness as the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She’d almost succeeded in
crying herself to sleep when a disturbance close at hand jolted her to full
wakefulness.

Neveyah pushed the tent flap aside and entered with a
sullen Shadowdancer at her heels. He didn’t look up, but stared at the floor as
if entranced by the carpets. The Herd Mistress spoke softly in a language
Sorsha didn’t recognize. Shadowdancer nodded then started toward the bed where
Sorsha lay helpless. By the time he reached the bed, he had his emotions under
enough control to manage a blank mask, but Sorsha hadn’t missed the quick,
guilty look he’d cast Neveyah at whatever she’d said.

Sorsha’s limbs still felt heavy, but the tingle of
returning sensation promised an end to her helpless confinement. Unfortunately,
it wouldn’t come soon enough to let her escape Shadowdancer. All she could do
was squirm with a chaotic mix of embarrassment, anger and grief.

Shadowdancer didn’t look at her as he padded to the
side of the bed, or pulled the blankets back and slipped in beside her. He
didn’t even look at her as he pulled her into his arms. Silent and stiff, he
held her as if he was holding the most venomous of creatures in his arms. His
aloofness hurt far more than his absence had.

“It’s alright, Sorsha. There’s no shame in weakness,
you’ll be able to move again shortly.” The Herd Mistress’s voice floated over
Sorsha’s head. “Rest now. Shadowdancer will stay with you. After what happened,
you both need the comfort only the other can offer.”

Her desire to yell at Neveyah was almost overwhelming,
but Sorsha knew any outburst would only deepen her embarrassment. There was
nothing to do, so she bit her tongue and turned her face away. She could move
that much. A hand settled low on her back, warm, more relaxed than earlier.

Shadowdancer rubbed his cheek against hers as he
pulled her closer. Two fingers under her chin forced her to face him. She met
his gaze with reluctance. In way of reply, Shadowdancer smiled faintly then
tilted his head up, his lips brushing her forehead in a gentle kiss. He was
begging forgiveness she realized. She didn’t know how to respond, but she
didn’t have to say anything. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to
where he’d just kissed. Then he turned and buried his face in her hair. His
move was swift, but not so fast she missed seeing the dampness at the corners
of his eyes.

Though her arms still tingled with receding numbness,
she forced both to move, curving them around his waist. “I’m sorry I trapped
you as a human.”

He sighed long and loud, the last of the tension
melting out of him. Shortly, he was asleep.

A sad smile tugged at her lips. Perhaps he would
forgive her one day. She continued stroking his back until sleep stilled her
hand.

* * * *

The storm, which had raged so fiercely in the night,
had blown itself out, and Sorsha awoke to feel the warmth of the sun on her
face and a hollowness in her soul. Her second thought was that Shadowdancer was
missing. She blinked sleepily. One wall of the pavilion had been rolled up to
allow the light of the rising sun to illuminate the interior. A breeze still
swirled, toying at the pavilion almost playfully, and it carried the soothing scent
of rain dampened grass, and green growing things. Better to dwell on those
things, Sorsha mused, than on the hole in her heart.

A shadow crossed between her and the light. She raised
a hand, shading her eyes enough she could focus on the big shape walking into
the tent. Her heart lurched first with joy and then with disappointment. His
size and coloring, a near match to Shadowdancer, might have tricked another
human, but this was not her Santhyrian.

Shadowdancer’s sire trotted around the foot of her bed
and stopped next to her shoulder. She stared up at Darkmoon and waited for him
to say something. His muzzle dipped down, nostrils flaring as he sniffed at
her. He snorted and shook his head.

“You just about killed yourself to save my son.”
He backed up a step and gave her an odd little bow.
“I
owe you thanks young Herd Mistress. If there is ever anything I can do for
you...”

“But I didn’t save him, my Larnkin did, and Shadowdancer’s
not…he’ll never…”

Darkmoon cut her off.
“Don’t say you didn’t save my
son. He’s alive. Miserable. Angry. Testy. Self-destructive. Snarling
incoherently at everyone and everything. But blessedly alive.”
Darkmoon’s
amusement washed over Sorsha’s unprotected mind. While she struggled with the
new sense of vulnerability, he ambled around the area, a darker shadow against
the pavilion’s wall.
“Honestly, I don’t care how it came about, nor do I
care if he is never able to open an arch again or gallop across the plains at
dawn. He is alive. That’s enough for any father. Thank you again for saving my
son’s life.”
The king stallion bowed down to kneel before Sorsha as she
stared on in shocked disbelief. After he straightened, he trotted over to the
open wall of the tent and stared off into the distance.

Sorsha sat up in bed and found she could move, her
muscles weak, but willing to support her. With a slow caution, she made her way
over to the Santhyrian and looked out across the distance in the same direction
he faced.

They were at the center of a village-sized grouping of
tents. Beyond the ring of tents a river cut a path through knee-high grass. Its
banks rose to a gentle rolling slope to either side. The seemingly endless
prairie stretched out in every direction as far as Sorsha could see.

“
Welcome to the Sea of Grass,”
Darkmoon
whispered into her mind.

Something rose up within her, even over the despair
she’d felt over what had happened to Shadowdancer, joy soared free within her.
Home. The prairie called to a primal part of her soul. This was her home. Here
was where she belonged.

Her eyes followed where Darkmoon’s gaze led. Far out
on the prairie, where the river twisted so sharply it nearly turned back upon
its self like the coils of a snake, a lone male human stood staring at the slow
moving waters, his back to the tents and the herd. She shaded her eyes and
gazed at the distant form of Shadowdancer. Both she and Darkmoon were silent,
if for different reasons. Sorsha because she didn’t know what to think or say,
and the older stallion deep in his own thoughts.