Authors: Anne Bishop
“It was fine,” she said stiffly. “I appreciate your cousin letting Kobrah and me use his room.”
“Huh.” Keeping a firm grip on her hand, he led her away from the kitchen door so they wouldn’t be underfoot of the people wanting to go inside and get some breakfast. “The words say one thing; the tone says something else. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
He bent his head, intending to give her a light kiss to remind her that she wasn’t alone here. She had acted as his guide when he was fumbling his way around the Asylum; now he could help her adjust to the landscapes that were Tryadnea’s neighbors. But when she turned her head to avoid his kiss, he released her hand and took a step back.
“Yeah,” he said with some bite in his voice. “Not a damn thing is wrong.”
She looked past him, and he wondered who was supposed to be the audience for this little show.
“It’s not appropriate for us to be intimate,” she said, sounding too much like a Handler for his liking.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not appropriate,” she insisted.
“Why?” His chest muscles tightened, squeezing his heart. He stared at her until his eyes burned from the effort to see her more clearly. Except he didn’t think it was his eyes that needed clarity.
“It wasn’t appropriate when we were at the Asylum,” he said slowly. “Any kind of physical relationship with an inmate could have been viewed as a misuse of your authority. I understood that. But I’m not an inmate anymore, Zhahar, and I’m not going to be again.” When she didn’t say anything, he looked toward the people going into the house. A group was still at the back of the lawn, looking at something, but among those
watching them while heading into the house for breakfast was Morragen Medusah a Zephyra.
“Being a Handler wasn’t the reason you retreated as much as you encouraged, was it?” he asked softly, his heart getting squeezed a little harder. “That was the excuse. Something kept pulling us toward each other, maybe even before we actually met. And now there’s something in the way. What is it? Your mothers? Or just the prejudice your people feel for anyone who isn’t Tryad?”
“It’s more than prejudice,” she said, not trying to hide her own bitterness. “It’s taboo to get involved with a man of single aspect. The penalties are harsh, Lee, and I can’t take the chance of being accused of having feelings for you.”
He stepped away from her. “If you knew you couldn’t love me, if you knew there were reasons why you
wouldn’t
allow this to ripen past a few kisses, you should have told me. You should have given me a choice about whether I wanted those kisses when there couldn’t be anything more.”
“Would you have wanted them?” she asked, challenging.
“Not from you.” She looked shocked, so he added, “I would, and have, accepted those restrictions from other women because I couldn’t give them anything more than a passing affection. But I feel more than passing affection for you, so I would have preferred to have nothing than just a taste of what I can’t have.” Heading for the gate in the stone wall that separated his mother’s personal land from the woodland that they all considered a joint concern, he said over his shoulder, “You should get something to eat. It’s going to be a long day.”
He’d gotten through the gate and had taken a dozen steps down the path when Teaser caught up to him.
“Where are you going?” Teaser asked.
“Don’t know.” Not far, since he had no intention of straying off the path that ran between his cottage and Nadia’s house.
“Why are you going?”
“Because I got my heart bruised just now, and I don’t want to face Zhahar
and
her mothers while I sit at
my
mother’s table. I’m not feeling that polite.”
“Ah.” They walked in silence for a minute. Then Teaser asked, “What about Sholeh and Zeela? You could ask one of them to come into view during the meal if you don’t want to deal with Zhahar. They like you.”
“I like them too, but I don’t want to have sex with them.”
“Well, daylight, Lee. I wasn’t talking about having sex with them—or anyone else—in front of everyone. Especially at your mother’s table. Or on the table. Because it’s Nadia’s, and that wouldn’t be proper.” A pause. “Would it be proper? Do you think she and—”
“No,” Lee snapped, refusing to think about Nadia and Jeb doing anything that intimate. “I wasn’t talking about having sex in front of anyone. But I
was
interested in having sex with Zhahar, until she made it clear just now that her interest in me
never
ran that deep.” Couldn’t run that deep, which wasn’t the same thing. What kind of penalties was she talking about?
“So you want to have sex with Zhahar but not with Sholeh and Zeela.”
“That’s right.” Or was last night.
“
Can
you have sex with one of them and not the others?” Teaser asked thoughtfully.
Lee stopped walking. It figured that an incubus would be too curious about Tryad sexuality not to keep circling around the question. “I don’t know. Maybe not. I had the impression they can give each other some measure of privacy, but since they share a physical core…” The idea of finding himself in bed with Zeela didn’t have any appeal, but waking up and finding himself beside Sholeh?
That
would feel too much like finding himself with Caitlin Marie, who was Michael’s younger sister and family now. “Maybe it is a case of all or none. But if that’s true, Zhahar should have told me.”
Teaser cocked his head. “Could she? We had the impression her being Tryad was a big secret.”
“It was,” Lee conceded. “Talking about the details of intimacy would be hard enough under any circumstances, and it isn’t something she would have done when she was still trying to hide what she was. But after I knew she was Tryad, she should have told me if we couldn’t be lovers instead of letting me believe it was possible. Somehow. I would have been disappointed, but I would have respected her choice.”
“Even if she wasn’t the one making the choice?”
Lee sighed. “You’re spending too much time with Yoshani. Or Danyal. Or both.”
Teaser grinned. “Or maybe, since we’re talking about sex, I’m the best-qualified person to talk to.”
A rather terrifying thought—which made it oddly comforting.
“How would you feel about going back to the house and slipping a plate of food out to me?” Lee asked.
“Where are you going to be?”
He turned and started walking back to Nadia’s house. “In the garden. It’s a good place to brood.”
Carrying a full plate and two mugs, Danyal walked to the bench in the garden. Lee looked up, then huffed out a breath and smiled.
“I wondered who would bring the plate,” Lee said. “Didn’t expect it to be you.”
“You don’t think I would have that much compassion?” Danyal asked as he handed over the plate.
“I figured you were the only man in the house besides Teaser who wouldn’t be looking for an excuse to come out here and yell at me.”
“Ah.” Danyal sat down and put one mug on the bench between them. “Well, you’re half right. I welcomed the excuse to come out here. But I didn’t come to yell; I came to listen.”
Lee ate some scrambled eggs and swore mildly when the bacon crumbled.
“Problem?” Danyal asked.
“Mother saved the overcooked bacon for me because I don’t like it this way. She’s a firm believer in letting people live with the consequences of their actions as a way of learning life’s lessons.” He was hungry, so he ate the bacon anyway. “You heard about this morning?”
“You, Sebastian, and the bird? I saw the second half of that drama—and have an itching regret that I missed the first half, which is
not
an appropriate feeling for a Shaman to have.”
“I stirred things up. I can claim I didn’t know what would happen, but I grew up in my mother’s house. I knew what would happen. I just don’t know why I did it.”
“You know,” Danyal replied, smiling.
“Shaman, I’m not sure I know much of anything right now.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” Danyal said. “The bird and the toast are symbols of the new life Sebastian is building. In order to have those things, he had to see the world differently, and that changed his life. So he values the bird, the toast, and the morning ritual. For you, they are symbols of what you left behind. Because you have a warm, generous family, it would be easy to go back to the life you had, fall back into the patterns and routines. You need something different, and you’re afraid you’ll go back to those patterns. So you pushed away the symbols and caused disruption so that you don’t fit quite so easily into the life you left behind.”
More than a spat with his cousin about a bird was causing the storm building in Lee’s heart-core. Wondering if the turbulence he felt in Zhahar had the same root, Danyal decided to probe gently.
Before he could shape his question, Lee set his fork on the plate, then lifted the mug of koffee.
“What about you?” Lee asked. “Will you fit back into the life you had in Vision before you crossed the bridge that brought you here?”
“No, I won’t.” Danyal saw Lee’s concern and smiled. “I don’t regret that. I hope there is a way to return to Vision and help the other Shamans deal with the wizards and the Dark Guide, but I have much to learn from the people I’ve met here, and, in learning it, I hope to discover the new shape of my own life.”
Lee set down the mug and resumed eating.
Danyal looked out at the garden, since it seemed rude to watch Lee eat. He regretted the darkness that now touched Vision, and he regretted the wounds on his shoulder and hip that were still healing, but he didn’t regret stumbling over that bridge and finding himself among these people. He was a Shaman, would always be a Shaman, but he had looked at Yoshani and the choices that holy man had made and had seen a truth about himself: he no longer wanted to be the kind of Shaman he had been. He wasn’t
certain he
could
be the kind of Shaman he had been, even if he’d wanted to stay within those boundaries. His heart had been ready for change, had craved it. And here it was. Now he had to figure out how to make the most of it.
“By the way, the Apothecary thinks he’ll be able to make another mixture that will improve your sight more than the eyedrops you have now,” Danyal said.
Lee’s hand trembled, shaking the scrambled eggs off the fork. “I’m glad to hear it, but I thought there was a limit to what could be restored.”
“Before going up to the house, Glorianna had the world bring the sandbox to Nadia’s garden.”
“Ah.” Lee nodded. “I saw the gathering and wondered, but I was embroiled in my own concerns.”
“The Apothecary had found one of the plants last night in the Den. All the ingredients for this healing mixture are brought into the city by ships from other places, and many of the plants lose much of their potency by the time they are sold in the bazaar.”
Lee smiled. “The plants are here, aren’t they?”
“Nadia recognized some; Glorianna recognized others. I thought the Apothecary was going to weep when Caitlin Marie, pointing out a plant whose dried leaves are so expensive several shadowmen buy a bundle and split it, said the plant grew wild in the field behind her house. He thinks brewing the potion for the eyedrops from fresh-picked plants will double the healing power. If this potion does what he thinks it will, you might regain most of your sight.”
Lee set the plate on the bench. “May your heart travel lightly, because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.” He paused. “Why did I end up being blinded in a city called Vision, Danyal? Why did you end up in the Den of Iniquity? As Sebastian is fond of saying, no one comes to the Den by mistake. By accident, yes, but not by mistake.”
He’d been wondering the same thing. “Isn’t it our task to find out?” He sighed. “Along with finding a way of returning to Vision.”
Lee straightened up slowly. “Heart music.”
Danyal frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Sorrow and joy.” Lee stood up. “I have to talk to Glorianna.”
No hesitation in Lee’s movements as he skirted the end of the bench and strode toward the house. No indication that anything interfered with his sight.
What interferes with my sight?
Danyal wondered.
And what has changed Zhahar from a calm summer lake to swift rapids?
Gathering the plate and mugs, he returned to the house.
“Glorianna,” Medusah said. “We need to speak with you about a potential danger.”
Glorianna led the a Zephyra Tryad into Nadia’s parlor. “A danger to the Den? From Tryadnea?” The darkness that was Belladonna pushed at her. Who better to deal with danger than the monster that Evil feared? But she held on to the Light in order to listen.
“Not a danger to your people,” Medusah said. “But a potential danger to Zhahar, and a reason for your people to think ill of us.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s possible that someone else from my homeland slipped across the border. Zhahar thought she’d seen Allone in the Den last night.”
A jagged song, Michael had said. She had sensed it as a heart that held too much darkness. A corrupt heart linked to a strong mind—a presence strong enough that even Sebastian had felt its sourness in the Den’s Dark currents.
“Allone is an aspect of a Tryad?” Glorianna asked.
Medusah shook her head. “She is what is left of a Tryad after the three were merged into one.”
Everything in Glorianna went still. “What exactly does that mean?”
“She chose the man who claimed to love her over her sisters, and by our customs, her sisters’ lives were the payment for that love.”
Glorianna held Michael’s hand as they followed Lee and Sebastian to the stable in the Den, where they had left the Apothecary’s wagon. At first Lee
had insisted that he needed to talk to her; then he changed his mind and said there was something he had to show her.
Medusah hadn’t told her much about this merging that was the punishment for breaking Tryad taboos, but the woman had said enough for her to listen very carefully to the hearts around her—especially Lee’s and Zhahar’s.
“There are some grating notes in his music now,” Michael said quietly, lifting his chin to indicate Lee.