Heart Fortune (Celta) (39 page)

“Very good!” Artemisia said. The Healer stood by the chest pump, sharp gaze on Glyssa.

Jace straightened, took her limp, warm fingers in his left hand, stroked her cheek with his right hand. “Time to wake up, Glyssa, HeartMate.”

Her sister gasped a second before his lover did. The pump automatically stopped and removed itself from the bedsponge, trundling into the corner.

“Open your eyes, HeartMate mine, my Glyssa,” Jace said, then added, “People are waiting on you. I’m waiting on you.”

Breath sighing out on a long groan, Glyssa did, touched her tongue to her lips. Her mouth formed the word, “Dry.”

“She needs water here,” Jace said, altered his body so it looked like he leaned insouciantly against her bedsponge, not that he was propped against it.

Artemisia hurried up with a coarsely woven folded softleaf with a corner that looked like it held orange juice. Glyssa’s parents propped up her shoulders. Her eyes opened, but her gaze didn’t shift. Jace knew what that was all about.

“You’re really tired,” he said. “I am, too.”

Again he read her lips. “Lep-id?”

“The Fams are at the Ashes, being treated like we are.”

Her lips showed the tiniest trace of a pout.

“Glad to see you back,” her father said gruffly. He bent and kissed her forehead.

“Back,” whispered Glyssa.

Jace went weak, swallowed. “Move her over and help me up.”

Garret was there and T’Licorice, helping him, while Artemisia and Glyssa’s sister shifted her. Her wavery moan wrenched at him, but not enough that he stopped the action he wanted.

Even when he was helped onto his side to look at her, no embarrassment touched him. Only gratitude and triumph that they’d succeeded.

The door opened. “The Fams insisted we return so they can be with their companions,” announced the young Gwydion Ash. He settled Zem—Jace could smell his bird—close to Jace’s head.

A very thin and scruffy-haired Lepid was placed near Glyssa. Jace wondered if he looked so bad. He supposed so.

“HeartMate,” he said, and moved his hand to touch Glyssa. Then he fell asleep.

This time he thought they’d all wake up.

Forty-one

A
week passed and Jace, Glyssa, and the Fams were recovering. The Elecampanes had shown up a few days after Jace’s and Glyssa’s ordeal and told them what had happened at camp—how they’d found Trago dead at the bottom of a cliff, and how they’d brought in a barracks for the Holly guards for the upcoming winter. They’d already closed the camp.

Raz and Del had brought Glyssa’s file no-times and the materials Jace had left in the workshop tent. He’d turned over the brooch to Del D’Elecampane and Lepid and the older fox, Shunuk, had had a session where Lepid had told Shunuk of his various caches that held antiquities.

As for the brooch, Del had consulted with the great jeweler, T’Ash, and the starship
Nuada’s Sword
and the piece was called a cameo and probably originated on old Earth, not the ship. A great find. They’d determined that the room Lepid and Jace had been trapped in had belonged to a female lieutenant who had survived the landing and the long trek to Druida City and had founded a GrandHouse that had since died out.

The AllCouncils of Celta had voted to establish a museum for the
Lugh’s Spear
artifacts, hired Antenn Blackthorn-Moss to design it, and had purchased the cameo for an outrageous sum that put a good amount in each member of the crew’s pockets. As Jace had speculated, the cameo had sparked a new fashion craze. Laev T’Hawthorn had been the first to commission one of Camellia from T’Ash.

Glyssa’s friends were often in D’Licorice Residence and soon Jace considered them like younger sisters, sometimes annoying, but often just thinking of the Family he’d acquired filled him with warmth. So had meeting with a banker regarding the middling inheritance his father had left.

That afternoon Jace sat with Glyssa on his lap in the main library of D’Licorice Residence, being “debriefed.” Both Laev and Camellia Hawthorn were there, along with a bunch of lords and ladies and the Elecampanes.

A large Fam bed was set near the fire and held a small fox curled around a hawkcel, Lepid and Zem.

“Glyssa thinks my Flair manifests as passive luck, especially with regard to near-fatal events,” Jace said.

“Luck!” Del D’Elecampane frowned at him.

“Hmm,” Laev said, with a gleam in his eye. “Maybe I should take you on as a partner in a couple of my riskier ventures.” He turned his purple gaze to Del. “Face it, if any other of your staff had gone down into that ship and died—something we think was masterminded by a Druidan noble working with the late and unlamented Trago, and we
will
find him or her—this project would be considered cursed for generations.”

He waved a hand. “There are plenty of other interesting expeditions and explorations and places nearer to Druida City and Gael City to build communities that people would have preferred to go to instead of the excavation of
Lugh’s Spear
.”

“But Jace went down, and he’s HeartBound with Glyssa,” Camellia pointed out. “And she is a determined person . . . and Trago could have been a whole lot more efficient with those explosives of his. He didn’t really want to kill anyone except Jace, and you had no casualties in camp.”

“That’s because after the first explosion, everyone scattered into the countryside except the guards,” Raz said. He squeezed Del’s hand. “Good call on those Hollys. They all survived, too, and I don’t think Trago would have cared if one or more had died.”

“The bottom line is that the project is still viable, you have a very tight camp community that is motivated to work with you,” Laev said.

Del was nodding. “More, we have the basis of a town, and we’ll be getting materials for permanent housing sent soon. This will be our last winter here in Druida City and Verde Valley. In the spring we will get back to work on the camp and on the town.”

“That will give us plenty of time to plan,” Jace said.

“You’re definitely coming?” Jace had never seen Del’s face light up so, she was usually serious. A warm feeling welled that he’d pleased her. He liked her. That emotions were coming back inside him was something to celebrate, too.

“Yes,” Glyssa said. “You’d better plan a PublicLibrary, too. We have plenty of extra volumes in the main one here in Druida to stock a new branch.”

Raz’s eyes gleamed. “Excellent.” Then he studied his fingernails. “How about vizes? Say of plays?”

“We have copies of a complete set of your work,” Glyssa assured him.

“That might limit the amount of plays you might want to do for the camp and the town,” Del said, the corners of her mouth tucked in, no doubt to suppress a smile.

Raz did an outrageously surprised goggle, then his face folded back into its regular cheerful expression. “I’ve contacted a couple of playwrights about a story of the excavation of
Lugh’s Spear.
”

Glyssa’s fingers clenched on Jace’s shoulder. She looked appalled. “Not including us!”

Raz shrugged. “Perhaps. I told them as much as I knew.”

“Absolutely not,” Glyssa said, sounding a lot like her mother.

“Let’s get back to this luck thing,” Del said. “I agree, the guy’s been lucky,
he
didn’t end up dead over a cliff like Trago.”

Jace kept his face easy. He’d told
nobody
what had happened, how he’d slapped at Trago. When Glyssa got better, if she didn’t sense it from him, he’d reveal the truth to her, and she’d want to document it in some sort of record, but he didn’t want to speak of Trago’s death . . . yet.

Glyssa said, “Trago went mad, first. Something in that man snapped.”

Zem lifted his beak from his chest. He, of course, knew what had happened as well as Jace.
The man wanted a woman as mate and she spurned him and that man thought my FamMan caused it. Big emotions. Big anger. Big madness.

“Huh,” Del said.

Glyssa rubbed her head against Jace’s chest. He liked that. Loved being with her. Couldn’t imagine his life without her.

“Without Jace’s luck and our HeartBond, the beacon the ritual here in Druida gave us, and the energy of the four of us, we wouldn’t be here,” Glyssa said in a low voice. He thought she’d cry again and that made him uncomfortable. He squeezed her.

“You HeartBonded without sex?” someone asked.

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t tap into any of the Flair we offered during the ritual?” Camellia continued.

“No. You were too far away,” Glyssa said.

“Distance shouldn’t matter,” Laev said.

“All I can tell you is that it did.” Glyssa began to sound weary.

Two weeks ago Jace could have stood with her in his arms, swept her out of the chamber and up the stairs to her bedroom. Now he straightened, set her gently on her feet, rose and took her hand. “That’s enough. Glyssa recorded all her thoughts regarding our experience as soon as she was coherent. I did my own and they are being intermixed and edited. The Licorice Family will accept requests to listen to the recordspheres, but will not make copies.” And the one in the future where he told of his contact with Trago at or near the time of the villain’s death would definitely be limited to a very few. Jace inclined his torso as low as he could—not very—before he thought he’d tip over.

They left the room and Glyssa’s parents followed them, her mother with Zem and her father carrying Lepid.

At the door he and Glyssa received kisses from the Licorices and admonitions to rest. Not that they’d been doing much of anything else.

Jace smiled at the older people. No trace of the former wariness had outlasted the announcement of their HeartBond.

Rhiza D’Licorice eyed him. “I’ll send some lunch up. Sit on the balcony and eat, get some sun.” She put Zem on his shoulder.

“Uh-huh,” Jace said, opening the door. Lepid walked in, tail lower than usual. He sniffed at his bed, then went out the open balcony door. Jace placed Zem on the perch. They both gave a tiny shudder. They’d both used that object to fix the image for the long teleportation in their minds. Zem dipped his beak in his water and drank.

“I’m so glad you’re here and safe, Zem,” Glyssa said.

He didn’t look up.
I am, too. I love you all. Up on FamMan’s shoulder now.

“Of course.” Glyssa lifted the bird to Jace’s shoulder then linked fingers with him.

They walked hand in hand through the door of Glyssa’s sitting room to the balcony overlooking the estate’s tangled gardens. An edging of tall pines separated the D’Licorices’ land from the PublicLibrary that the Family treasured so much.

He dropped her fingers to move Glyssa’s chair out from the café table but she ignored it, stretched her arms high as she stepped full into the sun. He felt a very welcome flicker of lust in his groin.

FamMan, I would like to perch on the rail,
said Zem. Jace lifted the light bunch of feathers Zem had become. The bird didn’t have any broken bones, but like the rest of them he was exhausted, though the bond between Jace and his Fam remained strong, solid and bright blue.

Jace set Zem on the far end of the white tinted wooden rail that held both shade and sun so the Fam could move to another spot if he got too warm or cold.

This city is not too bad, the trees aren’t as large as at my home, and the human and animal smells are interesting,
Zem said. He lifted his beautiful wings and stretched them in the sun.
It will be good to have warm shelter in the winter.

“We could get some bad snow,” Glyssa said. “I’m not sure how much snow the area around
Lugh’s Spear
receives.”

Not a lot,
Zem said, and began to groom his feathers.

Glyssa leaned against the rail and looked down at the land, then angled her head toward the large structure of the PublicLibrary. When Jace approached, she turned her head and smiled. Her face wasn’t as thin as it had been after their ordeal, but still showed smudges under her eyes. She looked fragile. Gesturing to the landscape, she said, “I want to soak up the view this winter. We won’t be back to live here ever again.”

“Probably not.” He picked up one of her hands resting on the rail and kissed it. “HeartMate.”

She sighed and her smile widened. “I never get tired of hearing you say that.”

FamWoman and FamMan,
Lepid added as he curled in the sun.

Glyssa laughed. “Those are good words, too, revealing our connections.”

FamMan and FamWoman,
Zem said.

“Lovely Fams,” Glyssa murmured.

“Great Fams,” Jace said at the same time.

He kissed her fingers. “But there’s one thing I haven’t said yet,” he replied, all too aware of those three small words.

Her eyes widened and the atmosphere seemed to rustle with anticipation. She reached out and took his hands in her own. “I love you,” she said.

His heart just thumped hard in his chest. She hadn’t said those words, either. He’d been too skittish around her for her to trust those words to him. Maybe she’d been too proud to say those words to him when she thought they wouldn’t be returned.

He just realized now how much he needed to hear them.

HeartMating and HeartBonding, all that meant love, but the simple phrase was a whole lot more necessary than he’d thought. In fact, her soft tone echoed through him, finally sank into his bones where they’d always warm him.

“I love you. I will forever,” he said.

She slid against him, wrapped her arms around his neck and their tongues played together. He closed his eyes and simply enjoyed her taste, having her in his arms. Again he felt the beginning of desire and welcomed that.

I love you, too, FamWoman and FamMan. I have said that OFTEN.
Lepid lifted his muzzle and opened his mouth to smile and let his tongue loll in a grin.

Zem snicked his beak.
I love you both, too.

When she pulled away, her face was rosy and she was smiling with a spark in her eyes he’d missed. He shook his head.

“What?” she asked. “I’m getting mixed feelings from you.”

“You should be getting all my love, HeartMate.”

Now she just beamed and leaned against him, slipping her arms down around his waist. She let out a breath. “I love you, HeartMate.”

“You know I’m phenomenally lucky.”

“Pretty much,” she agreed. “Pretty lucky, especially when it counts.”

“You said phenomenally lucky in the ship.”

“I wanted to get out. Go, team! We all needed to believe to our depths or we wouldn’t make it.” She leaned back, meeting his eyes, serious once more. “We almost didn’t make it.”

“Almost.”

We knew it would be scary,
Lepid said, the tip of his tail giving a twitch.
But we knew we would WIN!

Zem whuffed a tiny sigh, tilted his head to look at the fox.
The optimism of young ones. We had no choice.
The bird shuddered.
It was terrible in the ship, no open air at all.

“Sshhh.” Jace went over and gave his Fam a soothing stroke, then returned to Glyssa.

“I’d like you to test your Flair with T’Ash and his Testing Stones,” she said.

“No.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I’m phenomenally lucky.”

She smiled up at him.

He put his arms around her and squeezed. “Because I’m a risk taker. But, let me tell you, Glyssa Licorice, FirstLevel Librarian, you are the greatest risk I ever took, with all my heart, all of me.”