Wild Blood (Book 7) (16 page)

“Talk is for humans, and of talk there has been enough,” Silence rasped. “That was always Rowan’s failing—she believed too much in the power of words. Learn to speak with your heart, elven child.” He sighed and lay back on the furs, closing his eyes.

Valann and Lahti exchanged puzzled glances once more, but clearly their audience was at an end; they rose and followed Twilight and Spark silently out of the hut. Val almost sighed with relief, however, when they were outside; somehow the night seemed much safer in its very ordinariness.

Twilight vanished abruptly into the darkness without even a farewell; Spark, however, led Val and Lahti to one of the huts, hesitating outside, glancing at Lahti.

“We have twenty-two males,” she murmured, speaking for the first time. “Do you wish to choose among them?”

“Choose—” Lahti shook her head blankly.

“For the sacred dance,” Spark said, indicating the band around Lahti’s arm. “To fill your womb with life.”

Lahti’s eyes widened in realization, and she flushed.

“No,” she said hurriedly. “My mate is the one I have chosen.”

Spark nodded, although her furtive glance at Valann held some puzzlement.

“If there is anything else you need, call,” Spark murmured, “and someone will come.” Then she, too, was gone.

Val shrugged and ducked into the hut. A brighter, newer fire was burning here, and platters of meat, fruits, stew, and greens were laid beside the fire to keep warm. Apparently this was someone’s home, for what were likely personal belongings had been hastily shoved to the back of the hut in baskets. Several buckets of water had been placed just inside the doorway, together with a bowl of rendered-fat soap, and a stack of what turned out to be Hawk’s Eye-style leather clothing beside them.

Tired and hungry as he was, the simple act of washing away the sweat and dirt of days of travel was the most wonderful sensation Val could have imagined. He un-braided his black hair and washed it too, the marvelous sensation of cleanliness seeming to lift nights’ worth of exhaustion from him. He’d not bother to try the new clothing until morning; at the moment he was far more interested in the food awaiting them, and the thick, soft-looking pallet of furs that served as a bed.

When Lahti came to sit beside him at the fire, however, Valann almost forgot his hunger. She, too, had scrubbed herself from head to toe and was enjoying the warmth of the fire on her clean bare skin. Without the odors of her perspiration, the soiled leather of her clothing, and the travel dirt they had both accumulated, the musky scent Dusk had given Lahti was even more apparent. Val shivered and hurriedly turned to the food, hoping his hunger and the strong aromas of the richly spiced meat would distract him. However odd the Hawk’s Eyes might seem in their behavior, they apparently liked to savor a well-prepared meal as much as any other elf. He fancied, however, that Lahti gave him a small smile of amusement as she reached for the wineskin.

“You never told me,” Lahti said as she sampled the contents of a bowl of sap-sugared nuts, “how it was you were so certain that that was your sister we almost gave our lives to save. There were two, and so far away, and hidden in the thicket.”

“An elf who would blunder openly into Blue-eyes’ territory, coming into it from the open lands near the city and bringing a human with her?” Val scoffed. “Who had not the faintest notion of cover or quiet movement? Who else could it have been?”

“Ah.” Lahti raised an eyebrow. “Do you know, I thought my night vision the better of yours, and yet we were so far away I couldn’t have been certain whether the small one was an elf or a human child, perhaps.”

Val tried to remember. It
had
been dark, and there were so many Blue-eyes; had he actually seen Ria in all the confusion?

“But we were going because Dusk warned that she was approaching,” Val said at last. “And she did approach the forest.”

“Yes, Dusk’s vision,” Lahti agreed. “I should have realized that. I was only surprised that you seemed so certain so quickly.”

Val hesitated.

“I’ve sometimes dreamed of her,” he said slowly. “Sometimes I could almost touch her, it seemed. Dusk once told me that spending so many months side by side in the womb, sharing our mother’s heartbeat, that our spirits grew closely as well, and sometimes perhaps they touch in the spirit world.”

“As Dusk’s spirit journeys to seek his visions,” Lahti said, nodding. “I wonder if she felt your presence as well.”

Val said nothing; he had not thought of that. Had his sister seen his face in dreams, reached out vainly to touch him as he’d reached for her, woken and ached at her failure? Val shook his head; such things were Dusk’s realm, not his. He would be well content to let the Gifted One puzzle out the spirit world. Val had quite enough to concern himself in this place at this very moment, the Mother Forest knew!

The food was excellent, and the wine was the finest Val had ever tasted, but he might as well have been eating dust and dry leaves. Clean and comfortable for the first time in days, his hunger and thirst finally satisfied, his weariness seemed to vanish as if by magic, and he found himself glancing sideways at Lahti, helplessly watching the golden firelight dance over the gentle swell of her small new breasts and flicker over the smooth, dark strands of her hair.

“Does the food not please you?” Lahti asked, smiling mischievously as she popped a berry into her mouth.

“It was good enough,” Valann said quickly. “But I can eat no more of it.”

“Is there something else you want?” Lahti asked, and Val fancied he could hear almost a chuckle in her voice. “We could call for Spark.”

“I don’t need anything from Spark,” Val said, a little more sharply than he intended. He wondered irritably why none of the clan’s women had offered to share his pallet for the night. It would have been unthinkable to deny any guest of Inner Heart that most basic courtesy. Was it because of his part human blood, or just—

He glanced at Lahti again and sighed. Of course. Why would the Hawk’s Eyes offer him a bed partner when his ripe mate needed him? Val sighed again and crawled over to the pallet, pulling a fur over him despite the warm hut.

“Are you ill?” Lahti asked, concern in her voice, but one eyebrow arched knowingly.

“I’m only tired,” Val said gruffly. “It’s been many days since we slept well.”

“Of course,” Lahti said apologetically, putting down the bowl of berries. “I’ll bank the fire.”

Val grunted and turned away so he would not have to watch the soft glow of the fire on Lahti’s skin as she carefully piled ashes over the glowing logs, but he could not help but feel her warmth and smell her scent as she curled up against him on the furs. He pulled as far away from her as the pile of furs allowed, but a moment later he froze as Lahti’s warm hand touched his shoulder. Then there was nothing to do but roll over and face her. To Val’s utter disgust, she was still smiling that secret little smile.

“For days you’ve wanted my warmth beside you, and now you hide under the furs and pull away from me,” Lahti mocked gently. “Did you like me better when I was smudged and dirty and clothed in smelly leathers?”

“Well, you might have spared me Dusk’s scent tonight,” Val retorted crossly. “No Hawk’s Eyes are going to invade our tent this night while we sleep.”

“I know.” Lahti propped herself on his chest, to Val’s utter agony, all the worse for her smile. “And that’s why I applied none of the salve he gave me.”

Val scowled.

“But I can smell it.”

Lahti raised one eyebrow.

“The salve is in my pack, and our packs are between you and the wall, where the Hawk’s Eyes placed them,” she said mildly. “I would have had to pass you or walk through the fire to reach them.”

Utter shock, followed by incredible joy, paralyzed Valann as he realized what Lahti was saying; then he rolled over, pulling her close.

“But when?” he asked incredulously.

“I’m not certain,” Lahti chuckled. “This is all very new to me, and I was always so tired and hungry, and stiff and sore, too, from sleeping on the ground every night. I thought I was becoming ill, perhaps. I’ve never ripened before, you know, to recognize the feeling.”

“But—” Sudden leaden despair swept away Val’s delight as if it had never been. “We must return to Inner Heart immediately. You haven’t taken your passage to adulthood.”

“No.” Lahti shook her head, her eyes warm. “I haven’t. But by the time we journey all the way back to Inner Heart, my time of ripeness will be past.”

“If you ripen once, you’ll ripen again,” Val said, trying to tell himself that a few more days were nothing after months of waiting. The thought felt like a lie.

“Some women ripen only once,” Lahti said softly. “But perhaps I’ll ripen again, many decades from now. Perhaps half a century.”

The thought passed between them in a lightning flicker of understanding—Lahti might ripen five decades from now, but would Valann in fact be alive then? Humans lived such pitifully short lives, and Val was partly, at least, human. He had grown so quickly. He might well be dead, or past his years of siring a child, before Lahti ripened again.

Emotions warred in Val’s heart—pride that she wanted his child so badly despite his mixed blood, enough to risk the Mother Forest’s disfavor by coupling with him before she had passed her trials of adulthood; fear for the consequences to Lahti; desire, oh, yes, desire and love, too; and a sort of dismay—
What if I don’t give her a child, and she has made this terrible choice for nothing?

“You should return to Inner Heart and take your trials of passage,” he said reluctantly. “It’s forbidden that I should touch you while you are still a child.” Yet he could well understand why she might choose to ignore that law; what elven woman would pass by a chance to bear a child?

“And if I choose otherwise?” Lahti asked, her eyes sparkling.

“Then—then you should do as Spark suggested, and choose among Hawk’s Eye males for your High Circle, to give you the best chance of bearing a child,” Val said, forcing the words out.

“Indeed I will not,” Lahti said indignantly, pulling back a little. “You’d have me dance the High Circle for my very first coupling, and with these strangers?”

“No. Oh, no.” Val gave in and pulled her close again, burying his face in the softness of her hair as he had longed to do so many times. By the Mother Forest, she was so tiny, so slender, her small breasts and barely swelling hips so unformed that, although she was almost a decade his elder, she seemed very much a child still. Had Doeanna felt this sense of awe at the trust that had been placed in her? No; more likely she’d felt mildly amused and perhaps vaguely curious at the odd creature she’d been asked to initiate into the pleasures of coupling: a half-human oddity who’d gone from child to man in hardly more than a decade and a half, too tall and too broad, with hair springing from his face and body in places where it ought not to be.

“Are you certain?” he whispered, pausing to look into Lahti’s eyes soberly.

Lahti laughed and reached down to touch him.

“You
are, and no doubt of it,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Do you remember what Silence said? Learn to speak with your heart, and to listen with it, too.” She took Val’s hand and laid it over her heart. “Can you hear my heart calling to you?”

Val laughed and laid his head on her breast, turning to kiss the soft flesh.

“Indeed I do,” he said joyfully. “And I pledge the Mother Forest Herself can hear mine answer.”

Chapter Seven—Ria

“But I’m sick of my room,” Ria complained, shifting carefully so that her leg lay more comfortably on the cushions.

“That’s too bad.” Lady Rivkah did not look overly sympathetic. “Unfortunately, bed rest is one of the results of having a poisoned arrow shot into your leg.”

“Now that the poison’s gone, it could be healed,” Ria said sullenly.

“Yes, it probably could.” Lady Rivkah laid the tray of salves on the bedside table and began unwrapping the dressing. “I think, however, that a little discomfort and forced bed rest is appropriate enough punishment for all the worry you caused us, and with you confined to your bed, I don’t have to make sure there’s always a guard outside your door. You’ll be on your feet again in a day or two, anyway.”

Ria ground her teeth but resolutely did not wince as Lady Rivkah carefully cleaned the wounds and reapplied the salves and dressings.

“You know, Sharl wants contact with the elves just as much as you do,” Lady Rivkah said mildly, tying fresh bandages into place. “I don’t doubt that we would have taken you to the forest as soon as we found a safe place to enter it and some elves who would wait long enough to find out who we were before shooting, in the hope that if the elves wouldn’t talk to us, at least they’d talk to you.”

Ria said nothing. She was sure they probably
would
have taken her to the forest—after she was safely married to Cyril, and under heavy guard, and with Lady Rivkah ready to cast a spell to track her, if necessary.

“If you’d paid any attention to the historical accounts,” Lady Rivkah continued, “you’d have known that the Blue-eyes have been a hostile clan since long before the invasion. You might even have supposed that since they were so fierce and hostile, they might have expanded their territory in the sixteen years since the invasion, and since the border lands were often abandoned by other clans. You might have picked a safer spot to try to enter the forest.”

“I thought I’d use the road,” Ria said sullenly. “The same road you used.”

Lady Rivkah nodded.

“That wasn’t a bad idea,” she admitted. “It might have worked at one time. But Sharl has had the guards in the city looking for that road for years. They haven’t found it, and I imagine their poking around the edge of the forest hasn’t made the Blue-eyes any more hospitable.” She laid the jars of ointments neatly back on the tray. “Sharl and I agree that at this point our best course of action is to wait. Perhaps the elves will attempt to make contact with us. At least the Blue-eyes will have time to settle down a bit, and perhaps we can manage to learn the full extent of their territory so we can avoid it.”

Ria scowled and said nothing. Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah could spare the time to wait; nobody was forcing
them
to marry against their will.

“I don’t have to be a thought-seer to know what that scowl is for,” Lady Rivkah said, shaking her head. “Ria, I can’t understand this attitude you’re taking. We’re not marrying you to some brutal monster; this is our son Cyril, and you’ve been friends all your life. It might make some sense if you’d found someone else, but we know you haven’t. Sharl and I have been hoping you’d eventually start showing a little maturity and responsibility. I think it’s disgraceful that we even have to think about steps such as confining you to your rooms and stationing guards to watch you. But if you insist on acting like a child, you’ll be treated like one.”

Ria fought hard to swallow an angry retort; she had nothing to gain by making her foster mother more annoyed than she already was, and nothing to say that would change Lady Rivkah’s mind.

“Perhaps your mother
did
make a mistake in giving you to us,” Lady Rivkah said unexpectedly. “I can’t imagine what mistake Sharl and I made in your raising to cause you to be so selfish. Ria, your mother’s folk lived centuries upon centuries, and you likely will, too. Is it so terribly much to ask that you spend a few decades of your life to give Allanmere a High Lady and an heir?”

“So when is the wedding?” Ria asked, trying to keep her voice level.

“Sharl had suggested month’s end,” Lady Rivkah said, and Ria’s heart sank. That was less than two weeks away. “But Cyril suggested that Allanmere has never had a midsummer festival, and that that would be a good occasion for a combined celebration. I think he’s right. That will give Lord Emaril’s supply ship time to reach Allanmere, and that’s a cause for celebration by itself.”

This time Ria found herself stifling a smile of triumph. Midsummer—almost a month away! Cyril must have truly meant what he’d said to her, and he was buying her time to think.

When Lady Rivkah had gone, Ria took the crutch from its place beside her bed and clumsily swung herself upright, hobbling slowly over to the window ledge where she could look out. Now the jumble of masonry and the tantalizing nearness of the forest seemed mocking in their false promise of hope. The forest might as well be leagues away for all she could reach it; even if her injured leg would bear her well enough to attempt the long walk and the climb over the wall, the guards would be watching for her, if indeed there weren’t any stationed outside her door! Cyril had promised to help, but somehow it felt wrong to ask him to find a way to smuggle her out—too much as if she was agreeing to some implicit bargain she wasn’t certain she was prepared to honor.

Ria suddenly yelped as her leg twinged painfully; looking down, she saw Jenji sitting on her foot, pawing at her ankle for attention. Ria hurriedly reached down and scooped up the chirrit before he could do any further damage.

“Mage’s familiar,” Ria grumbled. “What good does that do me if I’m no mage? It’d be nice if you could manage to give me a little magic.”

Jenji chittered agreeably, jumping to his favorite perch on Ria’s shoulder. Ria wondered idly if her don’t-see-me was actually magic or not; it seemed different, somehow, from the spells Lady Rivkah or Yvarden cast. Lady Rivkah had, of course, tested Ria when she was much younger, and if Ria had shown enough magical ability, she’d have been taught magic along with Cyril. Ria certainly didn’t cast any spells, not even gestures or chants. And she had no idea how to use a familiar anyway. But—but perhaps Cyril would.

Ria limped back to the bed and pulled the bell cord. There was
no
chance she was going to open that door and see if there were guards standing outside. It would be too humiliating if there were.

The maid told Ria that Cyril was at his studies, but that she’d see that he knew that Ria wished to see him. There was a bit of a smirk on the maid’s face when she delivered this announcement, and Ria wondered how much amusement the servants were enjoying at her expense thanks to her aborted escape attempt, recapture, and subsequent confinement. Ria privately resolved that that particular maid was first in line for a particularly nasty prank when Ria was up to running speed again. Then there was nothing to do but go back to bed and fume privately until Cyril came.

It was, in fact, suppertime before Cyril arrived, when he brought his supper and Ria’s on a tray.

“Marliss said you asked for me,” he said cheerfully. “So I thought I’d spare myself supper with my parents and the inevitable wedding plans.”

“Lady Rivkah said you were the one who suggested putting the wedding back to midsummer,” Ria said shyly. “Thank you.”

Cyril shrugged a little uncomfortably.

“Well, it
is
a better time,” he said. “Besides, how do you think I’d look if the only way I could get you to marry me is to have you dragged before the priest while you’re too crippled to get away?”

Ria poked disinterestedly at her fish baked in nut milk.

“Cyril, do you know any healing spells?” she asked.

“Well—” Cyril hesitated. “I have Mother’s grimoire, and there are healing spells in it. I just haven’t gotten that far in my studies. Why? Mother said your leg was healing well.”

“Well, it could be healed by now,” Ria said crossly. “And it
hurts.
And I can hardly walk. I know your mother’s angry with me, but I think it’s cruel to leave me unhealed just so she doesn’t have to worry that I’ll run away. If you have the spell, you can do it, can’t you?”

“Ria, it’s just not that simple,” Cyril protested. “Some spells don’t involve controlling as much magical force. Others are far more complex. I don’t know how difficult the healing spell is, and I won’t know until I try it, not unless I ask another mage. And my mother’s the expert on healing spells.”

“What if it’s too complex, and you do something wrong?” Ria asked cautiously.

“The spell might just not work,” Cyril said. “That’s if I’m lucky. Otherwise it could go wrong, do something I didn’t mean to do. I wouldn’t want that to happen, especially not on a healing spell on a person.”

Ria shivered. Even getting away from her wedding wasn’t worth being lamed for life.

“What about if you had a familiar?” Ria suggested.

Cyril started to shrug, then glanced at Jenji, his eyebrows raising.

“It’s not the same thing,” he said slowly. “I’ve studied the theory of familiars, and a properly trained familiar can channel some of the magical energies, freeing the mage to handle the rest. But that’s when a mage has been working with a familiar for a long time, maybe years. Still—”

“Still?” Ria prompted.

“Chirrits are intelligent,” Cyril said thoughtfully. “Mother used to say that her teacher’s chirrit could speak a little. If Jenji’s intelligent enough, it could work. But it still requires a preliminary spell initiating mental contact between the mage and the familiar, and another spell to set up the magical lattice for the framework of—”

“Huh?” Ria asked blankly.

“Sorry.” Cyril shrugged. “Anyway, working with a familiar takes two spells I also haven’t used. I know those spells are simple enough, though, because Yvarden’s talked about getting me a familiar. Mother wouldn’t have it. She calls them a poor mage’s crutch, despite the fact that her own teacher used one.”

“Well, I’m not offering you my chirrit to be your familiar,” Ria said hurriedly. “I just thought you might—well, borrow him.”

Cyril was silent for a moment, considering, but Ria could tell he was tempted. At last he shook his head slowly.

“I’ll give it a try,” he said. “I’ll need to study the spells, filch all the stuff I’ll need. Then I’ll try to link up with Jenji. If all that works,
then
I’ll try the healing spell.”

Ria was disappointed. “When?”

“Maybe tomorrow night,” Cyril said after another moment’s thought. “Yvarden will be working with the stonemasons rebuilding the wall tomorrow, so I’m to study on my own. She didn’t say
what
I had to study in particular. While she’s gone I can get the supplies I need. And depending on how difficult it is to set up a lattice between Jenji and me, I may not be able to do the healing spell until the next night.”

Ria stifled her disappointment. She’d hoped irrationally that Cyril could heal her that very moment, or at worst that night. But it wasn’t Cyril’s fault; he
was
only an apprentice mage, after all, and after what he’d told her, she’d much prefer him to take his time and do the spell properly.

As intrigued as Cyril might be by the possibilities of the use of a familiar, however temporary, he was not distracted from other concerns.

“Have you thought about what I said?” he asked with poorly feigned casualness.

Ria sighed. This was the very last discussion in the world she wanted to have now.

“About marrying you?” she asked.

Cyril nodded, his cheeks flaming.

“Cyril, I—” Ria stopped, disturbed by the expression on Cyril’s face. Once again she didn’t know what to say. Her first impulse was to tell Cyril frankly that she didn’t have the least interest in marrying him now or ever, but that would hurt him, and besides, in that case would he still be willing to help her? That sounded horribly selfish even to her; and a second guilty thought followed that one. She’d promised to consider Cyril’s proposal seriously, and she hadn’t, not really. She didn’t
want
to consider it. Everyone’s blind assumption that Ria would marry Cyril, whether she liked it or not, made Ria want to refuse just as blindly. And how was she supposed to pretend they hadn’t been betrothed, that a forced marriage wasn’t looming just ahead of her, when everything and everyone around her conspired to remind her?

“I guess I need more time to think,” Ria said reluctantly, expecting Cyril’s disappointment, or even anger. To her surprise, however, Cyril smiled with evident relief.

“Do you know, I guess I was afraid you’d just say no,” he said, turning back to his dinner. “I might, if I were you, being kept in here like a prisoner. I almost didn’t even ask.”

Cyril’s honesty made Ria feel even more ashamed of her selfishness.

“Look, I can’t promise I’ll want to marry you,” Ria said shyly, “but I promise I won’t say no until I’ve thought about it.
Really
thought about it.”

“I’m glad.” Cyril smiled again. “Ria, would you mind if —well, if I kissed you?”

Ria grimaced.

“Do you have to?”

“Come on,” Cyril coaxed. “Aren’t you even a little curious about what it’s like?”

“Well—all right,” Ria said reluctantly. “Just this once, though.”

“All right.”

Cyril leaned forward and Ria held her breath, bracing herself, eyes closed tightly. A long moment later, she opened her eyes cautiously. To her outrage, Cyril was holding his hand over his mouth, barely choking back laughter.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, but you should see your face,” Cyril gasped. “You looked like someone punched you in the vitals or you bit into a sour apple.”

Anger almost obliterated Ria’s embarrassment, and she might have in fact punched Cyril if the maneuver would not have required bending her injured leg in a painfully awkward position.

“The next time you ever ask me for anything,” Ria said between clenched teeth, “I’m going to tell you what you can—”