Oria's Gambit (19 page)

“You used it on me.” The realization dawned
on him. “You nearly made me come right there and then when you used
it on my cock.”

“Lonen!”

“Hey sorceress—you’re the one who did it. I’m
just talking about it.”

“Is there nothing you won’t give voice
to?”

He pretended to think about it, then grinned
at her. “No.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have done that.” She
gestured wildly, crimson rippling in the breeze of her pacing. “It
was irresponsible and impulsive and wrong. That’s why it’s really
bad that I don’t have real
hwil
. I could have hurt you.”

“Felt amazing, in truth. Feel free to yank
that particular chain any time you get the urge.”

She stomped her foot, a gesture he was
beginning to love. “This is a serious conversation.”

“I’m always serious.”

She paused her pacing, mask swinging to him
in a posture of utter astonishment. “Liar,” she said softly,
exactly as he’d said it before.

He held up his palms in surrender, laughing.
“Guilty.”

“How can you laugh at a time like this?”

“It feels good to laugh. A kind of tension
release, don’t you think?” She didn’t answer, simply tapped her
foot, so he forged on. “In all seriousness, you have too much sgath
and that pushes you to overload. Chuffta helps manage that, doesn’t
he?”

She considered him. “He does, yes—kind of
like a buffer, but it only goes so far. Transforming the sgath to
grien and releasing it, that feels best.”

“So manly things would work to release it,
huh? A good physical workout always helps me.”

“I noticed,” she replied in a dry tone.

“Did you—were you watching me earlier?” The
thought pleased him immeasurably.

“I could hardly help it,” she sniffed, but
she resumed pacing.

“Did you like what you saw?”

“I saw you naked before,” she pointed out.
“In the baths.”

“Doesn’t answer the question.”

“This is a pointless direction. It won’t help
me figure out a way to vent.”

“I don’t know.” He stretched out his arms on
the seat back. “A good orgasm always works for me that way. Very
relaxing.”

She actually clapped her hands over her ears.
“I’m not hearing this.”

“Yes, well—it’s not a good solution anyway,
since you won’t pleasure yourself and I haven’t completely
determined how to give you a climax without touching you. I have
ideas, but there’s not enough time to implement them.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—were you talking? I couldn’t
hear you.”

She was wound up all right. Judging by the
angle of the sun, they needed to begin the long descent from her
tower soon, too. He mulled the problem.

How would he help the young warrior of his
analogy?

Oria simmered molten as glass in a forge, running
through with hot colors. At least Lonen wasn’t deliberately
provoking her any longer—not energetically anyway—which she had to
admit was an excellent reason to have let him in on some of her
weaknesses. She still felt unsettlingly exposed to have the Destrye
know so much about her, but that vow he’d made her…

It had the force of magic, something she
couldn’t make sense of.

Especially with so much else on her mind.

“I have an idea.” Lonen stood and came
towards her, looking far too potent via sgath. In many ways, it was
easier to look on him with her physical eyes. She perceived less of
the coiling energies around him that so distracted her. She held up
hands to fend him off and he darkened with displeasure. “Relax, I’m
not going to do anything to you. I’ll save that for tonight,” he
added, sensual energy snaking towards in that way that went right
through her every time.

“There might be the coronation ceremony
tonight,” she reminded him, pointedly stepping back. “In fact, we’d
better be hoping there is.”

His naughty good humor faded. “What does that
entail?”

“I don’t know—I’ve never seen one.”

“Will it be like the wedding ceremony,
impacting you as badly?”

“Or worse. I really don’t know, but we should
be prepared for that eventuality.”

He crackled with lashing impatience. “How can
you not know these things?”

“The temple isn’t exactly forthcoming with
its secrets. And that’s part of the test—if you know what’s coming,
a person can prepare for it.”

“Seems being better prepared would ensure
fewer failures.”

She held up her palms, acknowledging the
point. “Arguably, if we fail the temple’s tests, then we can’t be
trusted with the power of the temple’s secrets. If I can’t survive
the coronation ceremony, then I don’t deserve to be queen.”

He gazed at her a long moment. “And you call
us a brutal people.”

“There’s all kinds of brutality in the
world,” she informed him softly.

“True.” He shook it off, surveying her with
the intent perspective of a warrior. Funny how he shifted so
clearly to her sgath vision, from lover to king to fighter. “I’ve
got an idea. Let’s get at it this way. You had three brothers, all
grien users. I know you spent a lot of time in your tower, but I
also know what sisters are like. Surely you hung around them some,
listening to them talk. Boys like to screw around with what they
can do—did you ever watch them play fireballs versus earthquakes or
anything like that?”

She nearly laughed at his phrasing, but…

“Yes!” A kaleidoscope of memories crashed
through her. So many times that Ben, Nat, and Yar had argued over
meals, boasting of their new tricks and challenging each other.
She’d hated those conversations because of how left out she’d felt.
Particularly after Ben, who’d been the last of her brothers to take
the mask and thus her partner in being the slow student, had joined
their ranks. But she’d also listened with the sick envy of someone
who believed she’d never be as good as they were.

And Nat, back when she was younger, he’d
entertained her by juggling fireballs. He’d spent weeks working up
the trick—which meant a fair number of fireballs had gone astray.
Then there was the time Yar widened a chasm to trip up Ben and
nearly got them both killed. Father had been furious.

“Yes, they played games all right, but…” She
hissed a little between her teeth, thinking about it. “I’m afraid
I’ll break something.”

“That’s the female in you talking.”

“What?” Infuriated, she clenched her fists,
wanting nothing more than to smash one into his easy, taunting
mien.

“I’ll let you in on a male secret, Oria.
Boys, particularly younger ones who’ve just figured out that they
have strength they didn’t have before, don’t think about what they
might break. They just mess around and forget about consequences.
This is not always a good thing,” he added, “which is why they need
to be kept occupied and on a short leash by people who
are
aware of the consequences, but in this case I think the stakes are
high enough that you should forget about breaking something.”

“
Young male derkesthai are the same. When
they first come into their flames, no nest is safe.”

She shook her head at Chuffta and relayed the
words to Lonen.

He tossed a little salute to her Familiar.
The interactive energy between them had changed, overlapping in
interesting ways. Ones that she’d have to study later, at her
leisure. Should that day ever come.

“Okay then,” Lonen said. “So just let it go.
Swing that sword and stop fretting.”

“I’m not fretting.”

“If you were a guy, I’d call you chicken. But
I don’t want to hurt your tender female feelings.”

“Don’t you taunt me, Destrye.”

He pursed his lips and blew her a little
kiss, a potent spark with it. “Chicken,” he called.

It would serve him right if she let loose on
him, but she still had little idea what affinity her grien would
take, other than a kind of green fire, sometimes knocking things
over, or stirring up dust devils. Still—female fretting or not—it
seemed unwise to simply unleash all that sgath she’d built up into
just any random manifestation of grien magic.

It would really help if she knew more about
grien.

But there was something—a passing remark from
one of her teachers who’d sought to reassure her about taking so
long to master
hwil
and find her sgath. The priestess had
said grien magic was easier to learn because it burgeoned in young
men as part of their youthful vitality, pushing up like the sap in
the trees in springtime. They had to practice restraint, focus, and
release, while women’s magic worked in the reverse. Instead of
exploding outward, sgath drew in and received.

She had no time just then to learn restraint,
focus, and release—but she knew something about trees and the sap
rising in them. Looking around at her dying garden, it seemed she
could hardly do more damage to it than withholding water had
done.

“Okay, gentlemen, both of you get behind me.
This could get messy.”

Lonen didn’t argue for once, moving quickly
behind her with an aura of excited anticipation. Chuffta took wing,
landing on the stone balustrade.

“
Want me to be on you, instead?”

“
No. I don’t want to risk catching you in
the backlash.”

“
This is fun.”

“
It’s not fun, it’s necessary.”

“
It can be both.”

“This is going to be great,” Lonen said.

Men.

“
You know you love us.”

Chuffta’s smug reply tugged her in a funny
way, but she screened that out, concentrating on her task. Using
what little
hwil
that came to her easily, letting go of
worry about her inadequate control—fretting, indeed!—she focused
her mind on the trees in her garden, their crisping leaves and bare
branches, the wilted blossoms and the husks of others littering the
stones around them. It hurt her heart to see them die.

So she released sap. Sending it to them in a
rush of sorrowful love for all the shade they’d given her, the
flowers that scented her nights and the fruits that graced her
mornings. The grien left her in powerful gush, a blessed release
from pressure, one that ached with pleasurable pain, much like
voiding a much-too-full bladder.

Naked branches tossed in a wind he couldn’t
feel, brown leaves and dried petals spiraling in tornadic frenzy,
skittering up into the brilliant blue sky. A groaning, creaking
sound muttered over the terrace. With a series of sharp booms, the
stone planters burst, one after another, exploding rock shrapnel
everywhere.

Behind her, Lonen laughed like a crazy man,
exultant and wild, his excited energy shoring her up, like the sun
at her back, Chuffta’s steady presence in her mind a cool white
counterpoint. Roots burst out of the planters, twining, lashing for
purchase. The trunks thickened, writhing as they did, then shooting
up, branches proliferating and leaves bursting into green vivid
life. Blossoms followed, an induced spring racing faster than
Grienon through the sky, followed by full summer, fruits
burgeoning, weighing the branches even as they continued to
thicken.

At this rate, they’d collapse. Or tear down
her tower and them with it.

“It’s too much!” she shrieked, suddenly
panicked, which only made a shower of vines burst into radiant
blossom.

“
Then pull it back in. You know how.”
Chuffta’s calm and rational mind-voice steadied her.

At the same time, something pinged against
her mask. Lonen, tapping her metal cheek. “Enough, Oria,” he said
with implacable firmness. “Knock it back.” His presence stabilized
her, too, with his granite bedrock beneath the sunshine of his
vivid personality.

Like releasing a handful of petals to the
wind, she let go, the sgath and grien that had somehow combined
into one power condensing, drawing back, and settling like a gentle
rain.

Lonen kissed his fingertips and pressed them
to the mask, just over her mouth, his aura bright with emotions,
both extravagant and affectionate.

“You’re a hell of a woman, Oria. And you’re
going to be a sorceress beyond imagining. Now let’s go make you
queen.”

I
t wasn’t how she’d
expected to face the council, to demand to be ratified as Queen of
Bára with a Destrye warrior at her side and her hands tingling from
unleashing grien magic that still rattled the leaves of her
garden.

Of course, she wasn’t at all sure what she
had
envisioned, except that her mother was supposed to have
handled this, as it was her plan and she was the former queen. She
was supposed to have mastered the skill of envisioning a result so
that it would manifest as she chose. Oria hadn’t indulged herself
with many expectations, as they’d inevitably led to disappointment.
Time enough to learn all of that, she’d thought, if she ever
mastered
hwil
. She’d never imagined things would happen so
fast, one upon the next.