The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) (31 page)

“Have I - have I gotten so weak?” she asked softly,
her voice breaking, her demeanor brittle. “Am I so...?”

“Audola,” he whispered, drawing her close. She
yielded. The rest of what he was going to say was lost to the sweet tenderness
of her skin. His mouth savored the soft flesh of her shoulder. His hands cupped
and lifted her heavy breasts, massaging them with loving, languid movements,
only occasionally remembering to lather them. She let her head fall back,
coherent thought destroyed by sensations that she had not experienced for over
ten cycles. His hands moved lower and she made a small, open-mouthed sound, her
hands flexing and stroking his knees. His mouth traveled up her graceful neck
and his arms enfolded her, tightened; finally his mouth found hers, muffling
her soft moan.

“My Queen,” he breathed into her ear, “you have been
very tense of late.” His words asked a question.

“Yes,” she said, her voice breathless, “that is
true.” It was an answer.

He smiled and swept her up as he stood, holding her
tight against his chest. “I am skilled in the arts of relaxation, my Queen,” he
murmured. Then, his mouth again drinking of her, he exited the water, taking
them both, dripping, to the Queen’s sleeping
lain
.

the light turned to sickly darkness...

Gavaron
ran.

Back
to the Este and Sor’n, back the way he had gone and come, back to the laughter
of the
lu’mari
.
He grabbed weapons blindly as he flowed out his door, practiced moves seating
them without conscious effort.

He ran away from the punishing words, the flooding
memories, the naked truth in Jeliya’s accusations. He ran for his soul, to
escape the pain, but it pursued on sickly yellow hooves, laughing out of pale
green eyes.

How had she come so close, found him so easily? She
had come so close because she knew, knew everything.
Knew...

No,
not everything.

He slowed finally, stopped, his flanks flecked with
foam, his face drenched with sweat, both chests heaving. He let himself
collapse to the loam-covered ground, his back to a forest giant, and hung his
head with sobbing gasps, dashing tears of ancient sorrow from his eyes. Let the
lu’mari
come. He would gladly share his pain with them.

No,
not everything. She does not know about my treasure, my pen’lata. She does not
know where it is, the only thing I have left of Jenikia. What am I to do?

A flitting shape gave him temporary reprieve. He
lurched to his feet, armed this time with short staves and a long knife. He was
not out to kill, but the pack needed to know that he was not easy prey. If he
did not show strength now, they would harry and harass him in his own territory
until he was forced to wipe them out.

This gets settled here and now,
he thought
viciously, malice as a poor mask for consuming pain. The polished staves made
flashing figure-eights, and a fierce, angry gladness rose in his chest and
drowned out, for the moment, Jeliya’s words.

She was right, he knew the cause of the
Zehj’Ba
,
knew it was this, his
pen’lata
, but how
could he give that up? How could he break his oath to Jenikia?

The first sinuous shape came out from behind a fern
that looked like it would not be able to conceal a creature whose head came up
to his lower chest. It stood panting and grinning at him, its head swinging
about the pivot point of its neck, as if it were taunting him. Its milky blue
eyes, without visible pupil, narrowed and it gave a soft laugh. Gavaron stood
his ground, eyes still leaking, but his arms relaxed now and the staves almost
dangling from his hands. He would hold. Their pain would not be quick. It would
be slow, like the agony he had known.

For he had known, from the first, that this was the
cause. He had felt it from the time it began. He had tried to find some way to
stop it, but failed. Dare he leave it to Jeliya to find some method of stopping
the
Zehj’Ba
,
and could she do it without destroying what was his? Did he love her and trust
her that much? Did he forgive her already her cruelty?

The
lu’mar
turned and
trotted back into the trees, rejoining the pack that circled and surrounded
him. Its laughter left a bitter trail down his throat. They whined and yipped,
their excitement mounting, just as his pain built as returning memories grew.

Then Jeliya’s words came back to torment him,
filling a gap in his knowledge. He had known that Jenikia had endured some
terrible, awful thing, before their Joining had been severed, a thing that had
forever left her broken, but he had not known what.

Purification
and Expungement? Forever barren?

...A
screaming, ripping, scalding tide of light, a flood of searing pain, a barren
pathway left within the core of him, of
her
, a screaming of
unborn death, an unmaking of what made her a woman. A welling of burning tears,
an enormous, horrible emptiness, a barrenness that could never be undone, a
stripping away of an inner skin. A pledge from a liquid throat, a whispered
name, a breaking of a vivid soul, leaving only a pale reflection of a shadow of
self. And then... nothing, a horrible void of nothing.

Nothing...

He moaned, held back more tears of his own. His
defensive pose faltered, under the weight of this revelation.

Oh
my ky’pen’dati, had I known what they would have done to you, had I but
known
...

The
lu’mari
attacked as
his concentration flickered. The first leapt, springing
not
for his throat, but for the staff in his left hand. They were going to toy with
him, giving each member of the pack a taste before they ripped him apart. But
the staff flashed up, catching it on the side of its thick head and knocking it
away. A second was right behind it, and a twist of the wrist brought the
reverse end of the knobby staff up under its jaw. The third appeared in the air
at almost the same instant to his right and he caught it in the shoulder,
swinging it around to bash full body into the tree behind him. With a back hoof
he shoved the stunned reptiloid-mammal away as he turned back to face yet
another, also jumping for a non-vital point. His mind was strangely freed as he
fought for his life. He would have fought…

He should have fought for Jenikia. Had he known what
they would do to her…

Had he known, he would have gone to her, would have
taken her away. Would have taken her to the deepest, farthest corner of the
Realm he could find, or maybe even across the
Av’ru
itself.

My darling,
he cried out to her haunting shade. A
lu’mar
caught a
front hoof between the eyes and shook it off. It did not shake off the knob end
of the staff that followed.
My darling, you should have called to me. I
would have come, and be damned whoever tried to stop me. I would have come for
you.

Tears started from his eyes again and he lashed out
viciously with the staves, only remembering at the last moment to pull his
blows. Seven of the thirteen in the pack had felt his pain, and the remaining
six were more wary, no longer playing. He stood, breathing hard, waiting for
the next set of snapping jaws, but they hung back, looking at him from cover.

“Maybe it is better to leave me and mine alone?” he
growled, his voice raw, scalding silver. The pack leader, the first to charge,
had tried again and had tasted the knob ends of both staves alongside its head.
It was just stirring again, off to the left, behind a small bush. It looked at
him as he spoke and got to wobbly feet. He could see the calculation behind its
eyes, and without looking away from its dead, milky stare, he smacked a
lu’mar
trying sneak up on his other side in the nose. It got a grip on the staff and
pulled it away, and Gavaron let it have the staff, drawing the long knife its
place.

“Will you forget my scent, or do I have to start
killing you?”

As they had killed his love. She had walked and
drawn breath, but her spark, her fire had been killed off with three cruel
strokes. Losing his child. Losing him. Losing the ability to have any other
children after she gave the Realm an Heir.

The leader considered, eyes narrowed in aggravation
rather than amusement. It stared at him a long time, and he stared back.
Finally it gave three high barks and trotted away, limping slightly. It would
probably have to fight to keep its position. Each
lu’mar
gave an answering bark, and he waited until the last had answered before
resheathing his knife, retrieving his staff and going his own way to safer
places, emptied now of feeling. He stopped by a pool fed by a small cascade. He
hung his head. He felt cold in the steaming rainforest.

A distant stirring drew his attention.
A distant
tugging, a distant calling.
He moved toward it, following where it led...

the
light turned to dreams of dark...

Jeliya’s dreams were shattered by a distant tug. She
sat up. The tug came again, a bit stronger this time. It was a pull at her
av’rita
,
the soul of her power. It was faint, weak, as though it could not quite find
her. She recognized it for what it was: the Rite of Seeking. She resisted, at
first, as she had been taught, and probed the rite for a signature. Then she
sighed with profound relief and joy, and she relaxed and reached to the force
pulling at her. For the sensation was full of the unmistakable presence
of her mother, a feeling so familiar it was almost the sound of her mother’s
voice calling her name. She acknowledged the rite, since it could not connect
with her otherwise - a necessary precaution in case enemies were using the
rite. Even unconscious she would have automatically probed it, and either
accepted or rejected it depending on whether it was sent by friend or foe. But
it was more than friend - it was family, and someone would be coming for her
soon.

Then thoughts of her benefactor turned the feeling
of relief chill. What about Gavaron? She had gotten a partial confession from
him, but it was not really enough and time was now about to start running out.
But more, how would they treat him when they finally found her? Would she have
time to explain, and keep them from trying to harm him? Her oath would probably
protect him, but she did not want it revealed that she had made the oath yet,
and not under those circumstances.

She began to fret again, then caught herself. Why
was she fretting over him? What was he to her, that she should get upset about
how her mother’s
warru
treated him?

I care though,
she realized, admitted, not
having the heart to lie to herself.
I
do
care what happens to him. He
is
-
significant to me. Besides,
she rationalized, turning away from
the painfully real and disturbing thoughts,
I owe him my life. I cannot
permit him to come to harm. But I can’t tell him yet.
She bit a nail,
frowning.
Not yet. I must try one more time to get what I need from him.

Jeliya turned her thoughts to the link between them.
She had not yet gotten around to finding a way to sever it. Now was as good a
time as any.

She began the
pay’ta’ri
,
the inner contemplation of one’s own mind and soul. She immersed herself in her
being, seeing/feeling/knowing for the first time the connection with Gavaron.

She felt the cords of the
Jur’av’chi
,
studied its bindings, its workings.

And was stunned by its complexity and its extent.
Why, even as she watched/felt/knew, new links were forming, tenuous,
undeveloped links, waiting to mature. In fact, the whole network was made up of
unopened links - except for two deep, thick channels that radiated away to a
distant terminus.

Jeliya shivered in fear. The Joining between two
people was no light thing, no trivial, every-turn occurrence. It only happened
one of three ways: when two people who had been together a long time
consciously decided to take the natural, tenuous link that always forms between
lovers or friends and deepen it and widen it using an aspect of the Rite of
Solu
,
and make it a bond between them; when two were Goddess-blessed soul mates; or
when one bared one’s soul to bring another back from the brink of death. The
Jur’Av’chi
was the deepest sharing any two persons could commit, but even Goddess-ordained
bonds took cycles to become as rich and deep as what she found within herself.
And there would only be one deep connection, not two, and only a few lesser
links forming around it, not hundreds. Even the death-denying soul-touch took
time to build this deep. Lots of time.

What Jeliya observed should not be. Could not be. It
was impossible, utterly, totally impossible. It scared her witless. What she
saw bespoke of something that went beyond the touching of souls, the brush of a
lover’s
ritu’chi
as a gentle kiss in deep eve. This spoke of - she could not imagine what could
cause this. Soul violation? The
Solu’san
? A
derivation of the
Zehj’Ba
?