Pursued (11 page)

“Don’t be silly,” Nadiah said gently. To tell the truth, she’d been hoping Lissa would approach her. Rast was a wonderful mate but he was still a male and what Nadiah most wanted on First World was a good girl friend, someone she could gossip and have girl talk with. Though Lissa had somewhat stiff and formal manners, Nadiah thought she was mostly just shy and unsure of herself. She was sure if she could just get through the barrier the young high priestess had put around herself, she would find a wonderful and loyal friend. “I don’t mind—in fact, I’d love to talk,” she told Lissa, hoping to draw her out more.

“You are very kind.” The priestess bit her lip, her jade green eyes troubled. “But I fear you may not feel so kindly toward me when you hear what I have to say. I…I cannot say it to
Challa
Rast—I fear to. But I hoped that maybe you could talk to him on my behalf.”

“I’ll certainly do my best.” Reaching up, Nadiah took one of the girl’s hands in hers and drew her down to sit in the chair beside her. Luckily the library was completely deserted except for the two of them and the small, triangular table she’d been studying at had more than enough room for another person. “Now, what is it you have to say?”

“I…I…” Lissa took a deep breath. “I am not fit to be high priestess.”

“What?” Nadiah frowned. “What are you talking about?” Rast had made Lissa the high priestess after the old one had been demoted by none other than the Goddess herself. It had been a spur of the moment decision but Nadiah felt in her gut that it was right. So why was Lissa saying otherwise? “Why would you say that—think that?” she urged softly when the young priestess was still silent.

“I…I have had impure thoughts,” Lissa said in a rush. “Thoughts which I cannot deny or purge though I have tried over and over.” She looked down at her hands, her dark blonde hair, streaked with jade green that matched her eyes, falling around her flushed cheeks. “Forgive me, my Lady.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Gently, Nadiah raised her chin and saw that Lissa’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “We all have those kinds of thoughts from time to time,” she said. “You don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“You don’t know the whole of it.” Lissa’s face was anguished as she spoke. “It is not only the thoughts themselves but the person I have been thinking of. He…he is my
brother
.” She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, the shame! I have tried so hard to bury my feelings for him, to cast them into the sands of the Rainbow Desert and be rid of them forever but I cannot…I
cannot
.”

“Wait a minute,” Nadiah said reasonably. “Now, if I remember correctly, when you say ‘brother’ you just mean someone who was born into your own clan, is that right? There isn’t really any blood relation between you, you just happen to come from the same ‘home town’ as my friend, Sophie, would say.”

Lissa nodded but her eyes were still troubled. “If that was all there was to my story, it would be bad enough. The kinship ties of the clan, the fact that we bear the same mark…” She turned to Nadiah and lifted the hem of her simple white robe to show what she meant. There, high on her left inner thigh, Nadiah saw what looked like a ritual tattoo—a circle about as big as a coin surrounded by wavy lines. “I am a member of the Sun Clan of the Touch Kindred,” Lissa said softly. “As such, I could have been mated to a male of the Moon Clan or the Star Clan with honor. I could even have chosen a male from the Wind or Water or Fire Clan, though they are considered beneath us as they have almost no Touch ability.”

“So you fell in love with a male within your own clan with the same marking,” Nadiah said, trying to understand. “But you
still
aren’t related by blood, are you?”

“No. But what I did was more shameful than even that,” Lissa murmured. “I…I broke a sacred trust. You see, my parents—my true parents—were traders to the stars. So even though they were members of the Sun Clan, we didn’t often see the others in our clan because we were always off trading. Then when I was twelve cycles old, our ship was taken by pirates. A passing Kindred freighter responded to the distress signal my father managed to set off but by the time they came it was too late, my parents and little brother had all been killed.”

She spoke calmly enough, relating the terrible tale, but Nadiah thought she could still see the hurt and terror that twelve year old girl must have felt, watching her parents and brother being butchered in front of her. “Oh, Lissa,” she murmured, pressing the other girl’s hand gently.

“It was a long time ago.” Lissa sighed. “Though dreams of it still haunt me sometimes.”

“What happened to you?” Nadiah asked. “Were you adopted by another family in your clan?”

Lissa nodded. “Indeed—by none other than the Over Chief’s family. The chief of the Sun Clan is also the head of all the Touch Kindred,” she explained. “It was a great and unexpected honor but the Over Chief had been very close to my mother when they were children growing up together.”

“So…but if your real mother was of the Sun Clan, your real father…”

“Was of the Moon Clan. But we take whatever is the highest standing when we are joined,” Lissa explained. “So if a woman of a higher clan takes a male of a lower clan as her mate, he moves to her home clan, not the other way around.”

“I see—it’s different on Tranq Prime, but that makes sense.” Nadiah nodded. “Go on.”

“The Over Chief had a son.” Lissa looked down at the tabletop, tracing one slender finger in a complicated design on the smooth wooden surface. “A son about four years older than me named Saber. It means ‘Bright Blade of the Sun.’ He had more Touch ability than any male born in generations.”

“But I thought your people—the Touch Kindred—were trying to breed
out
the uh, Touch ability,” Nadiah said.

“That is what they tell the Kindred Council,” Lissa said. “The truth is, they aren’t seeking to breed out the ability but to breed
control
into those who have it. Saber had that control. He wasn’t reckless and wild and cruel like so many of the Touch males are. He…he was protective and kind and understanding. Everything a big brother should be. But it wasn’t as a brother that I felt for him. I…” Her voice broke and she shook her head, obviously unable to go on.

“You fell in love with him, didn’t you?” Nadiah said gently.

“Y-yes,” Lissa whispered and when she looked up, tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. “Even though we were of the same clan—of the same
household—
I still allowed myself to feel for him. You see, he really was raised as my older brother from the time I was twelve and he was sixteen. We were kin in every way that mattered.”

“Except by blood,” Nadiah pointed out.

Lissa swiped at her eyes. “Blood ties are nothing compared to the sacred trust of adoption. By allowing myself to feel for Saber, I dishonored the memory of my parents and spit on the kindness the Over Chief and his wife, my adopted mother, had showed me. I knew these things as I was falling in love with Saber and yet, somehow I could not stop myself…”

“I bet it wasn’t a one way street,” Nadiah said. “I’m guessing he felt the same way about you.”

“He did.” Lissa nodded. “Though he waited until I was eighteen cycles old and of age to admit it to me. He said…” She laughed brokenly. “He said he wanted our joining to be legal in at least one way even if it was completely taboo in every other way.”

“So you were going to run away together?” Nadiah lifted her eyebrows. “That’s very brave. I ran away from Y’dex too, you know. My parents wanted me to marry him but I just couldn’t—he was everything I loathed about Tranq Prime all rolled up in one nasty package.” She shivered, remembering Y’dex’s bulging blue eyes and the horrible way he’d treated her.

“Then you were much more courageous than I was,” Lissa said in a low voice. “When Saber declared his love to me, I was indecisive—fearful of the consequences and ashamed—
deeply
ashamed both of my own feelings and the feelings I had somehow inspired in him.”

“Is the taboo really that strong?” Nadiah asked, frowning. “I mean, I know you were living in the same family but you were both older than children when you met and as you said, he was protective and kind to you at a time when you had just suffered a great loss. It’s not so surprising that you should come to love him.”

“Yes, it is,” Lissa said grimly. “Do you have any brothers—true brothers—my Lady?”

Nadiah shook her head. “The closest I have is Sylvan—he’s my older cousin.”

“And what if you were to fall in love with him?” Lissa asked in a quiet voice. “So much so that you wished to be joined to him, to receive the Deep Touch from him and bear his children?”

“Eww!” Nadiah wrinkled her nose involuntarily. “I mean, please don’t misunderstand me, I love Sylvan very much but not
that
way.”

Lissa nodded. “Your instinctive reaction is right and proper—and would be considered so by my people as well. Now take that reaction—that feeling of instinctive revulsion you felt at the idea of joining with your cousin—and multiply it by ten.
That
is the emotion we of the Touch Kindred have been taught to feel about the idea of mating with one of our own clan. Add to that the fact that the male I wanted was of the same household—in name and deed my actual
older brother
—and you can multiply it by a hundred, maybe even a
thousand
. There is no word strong enough for the wrongness Saber and I committed together.”

“Oh my,” Nadiah breathed, finally understanding. “You’d be social pariahs—outcasts if anyone found out.”

“And someone did,” Lissa said grimly. “Saber begged for the chance to prove his love, to prove to me that we belonged together. And I…I agreed. And so it was that my adopted mother came upon us in the woods when Saber was Touching me.”

“Touching you?” Nadiah frowned. “How? Was he stroking your cheek or were you kissing or…or doing something else?”

Lissa recoiled as though Nadiah had struck her. “He wasn’t touching me
physically
with his hands or mouth!” She sounded shocked and horrified. “Though we had admitted our love, even then we were not so shameless as to physically touch each other. Not
that
way, anyway. Not…not sexually,” she ended in a low, embarrassed voice.

“What way then?” Nadiah asked, mystified.

“With his mind of course,” Lissa said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “You see, when people of the same clan Touch each other intimately with their minds it feels
wrong.
The same way physically kissing or touching one of your close male relatives romantically would feel wrong to you.” She sighed. “Saber wanted to prove to me that it wouldn’t feel wrong between us. That his mental Touch on my body would give me pleasure, not revulsion.”

“How
did
it feel?” Nadiah asked, completely caught up in the story now. “Did it feel wrong? Or right?”

Lissa frowned. “It felt…forbidden. Like it was something we ought not to do. But so…so
pleasurable,
I can scarcely describe it.” She shivered as though reliving some exotic sensation. “I can still feel his whisper-fingers sliding through my hair—I was the only Kindred female in our clan and everyone else made fun of it, you know. They said my green stripes made me look like a
tseeba—
an ugly little animal with stripes down its back
.
But Saber, he told me not to pay any attention to them. He thought my hair was beautiful.”

“So your adopted mother caught him touching your hair with his mind?” To Nadiah, it still sounded extremely innocent.

Lissa blushed a dull red. “He…he kissed me too. Not with his mouth, of course. But his whisper-lips were so soft, so gentle…”

“How did your adopted mother even know what was happening?” Nadiah asked. “I mean, if you were both just standing there, not even physically in contact…”

“You can tell when two of my people are Touching each other,” Lissa said grimly. “The Touch Field around them extends quite far. It…it
excites
anyone in the immediate vicinity.”

“Like a mental aphrodisiac.” Nadiah shook her head. “Amazing.”

“And very telling,” Lissa said sadly. “So you see, there was no way to disguise what we were doing even though we were standing three feet apart at least.”

“What did she do?” Nadiah asked, although she already had an idea.

“She was livid, of course.” Lissa cringed with what was obviously a very painful memory. “She said I had corrupted her son, that he never would have done such a thing if I hadn’t tempted him. Saber tried to defend me but she said his protectiveness was just another symptom of the spell I had cast on him. She…” Lissa swallowed hard, as though forcing herself to continue. “She said I might as well spit on my parents’ graves—that the dishonor I had done them was so great it was unforgivable.”

“Oh, Lissa…” Nadiah squeezed the other girl’s hand in sympathy. “I’m so sorry. So I guess that was when she decided to send you to First World to be a priestess?”

Lissa nodded. “Had we been caught in a
physical
embrace or—Goddess forbid—if I had allowed Saber to give me the Deep Touch…” she blushed with embarrassment at the words. “Well, I don’t even know if that would have been possible between us, but had we even
tried
, we would both have been stoned to death. However, since the Touch Saber gave me was slight and nonphysical, my adopted mother chose to conceal the matter and simply separate us.”

“Thank the Goddess you weren’t stoned,” Nadiah exclaimed. “How barbaric!”

“Yes, I was granted life though I deserved death. But sometimes I wonder if death might not have been kinder.” Lissa looked troubled. “You see, before she sent me to First World, she made me renounce Saber.”

“Renounce him? What does that mean exactly to your people?”

Lissa hung her head. “I had to tell him I didn’t love him anymore. Say that I never wanted to see him again. I swore a formal oath that I would never be his. And oh, my Lady…” She looked up at Nadiah. “When I said those words and saw the light of his love for me dying in his eyes…then I wanted to die too. I hurt him…hurt him so badly because it was the only way to keep him from me. To keep his mother from exposing what had happened between us.”