The Bonds of Blood (3 page)

He sent a prayer up to the goddess,
that she would protect him, and he was hopeful that she could hear
him during her struggle to leave the grips of the Otherworld. The
creature growled as the Holy Mother’s prayer issued from Jovian’s
lips, and the leg that pinned his right one down twisted,
splintering Jovian’s leg much like his bow.

A sharp cry left his lips, but Jovian
still formed the words:

“Holy Mother of the Ever After, be here
with me now. I have strayed away and lost my ground, fearing to be
never found. Blessed She who is all things, weave a light around
me, for in your light nothing’s lost, and evil shall not be.” A
harsh sound slipped from his throat as the beast wrenched its back
leg further into Jovians broken one. Tears sprang to his eyes, and
Jovian thought all was lost. The Goddess didn’t hear
him.

But soon he realized how wrong he was,
because even as he writhed, Jovian was beginning to see a most
familiar sight. It was a sight that Angelica and he had seen often
while voyaging in a small grove of trees by their plantation
home.

A little way off to his right Jovian
saw a faint silver light shining in the darkening fog. He let out a
hopeful cry as the familiar light of the Guardian Spirit (what
Angelica and he came to know as an Aramaiti) began to brighten, but
never so bright that he could not look straight into it. Some
people would have called a light that haunting and dull a wythe
light, but Jovian knew better. This very light had come to him many
times, and either guided him and Angelica, helped them out of
danger, or just kept them company.

The deep fog near him began to eddy as
the orb grew longer, and nearer. Soon its shape transformed to that
of a small person who would have only stood as high as Jovian’s
chest. The dark beast seemed not to like the Aramaiti, for it
turned all of its hatred from Jovian to the silver figure drawing
near.

Jovian realized then that the fog
wasn’t just swirling around the feet of the figure; the fog was
actually being repelled. Soon Jovian could see all of the oily
black fur of the chaotic beast on him, for chaotic was the only
word he could think of to describe it.

The silver light never faded, but the
figure slowly became more human, more flesh instead of light. Even
amidst the pain, this drew all of Jovian’s attention, for he had
never seen this being in the flesh before. Angelica and Jovian had
only ever seen its outline.

He was not surprised to see that the
being was female, or even that the long loosely curled hair that
framed her face was coal black; for some reason it just fit. Her
long wispy dress drifted on the currents of the fog, emanating
endless silver from the seams. The small woman turned her stern
face on the creature, and her ice blue eyes burned with a cold
fire.

Jovian heard no words spoken, but her
eyes warned the creature to leave or suffer pain and death. It was
no surprise when the creature bound off, disappearing into the
fog.

The Aramaiti drifted closer to Jovian,
and the damp fog left him. Kneeling beside him, she smiled and
touched his head. At once the pain was gone, but only if he stayed
in that one position. As soon as Jovian tried to move, the pain
returned in sharp gusts through his wrist, side, and leg
again.

The Aramaiti smiled again in
understanding. Jovian looked into her face; she was the most
beautiful person he had ever seen before. Her strong jaw and high
cheekbones spoke of a native of the Realm of Earth, yet her calm
radiance and loving eyes testified of someone closer to
home.

Pulled into those hypnotic eyes, it was
some time before Jovian felt himself starting to nod off to sleep.
It was then he heard the horn, this time closer, and his awareness
returned.

The Aramaiti was gone, and the fog was
thicker. If he had not been rescued by her before, he would have
thought she was nothing more than a figment of his
imagination.

Slowly, so as not to cause more pain,
he reached for the lump causing great agony behind his head. It was
his horn, cracked in one part, but still of some use. He found he
had to blow harder, but in time he was able to manage a long
mournful note on the instrument despite the ache it caused
him.

That was all the energy Jovian had. He
no more blew the note before he fell into blackness.

He awoke beneath the worried face of
his father looming over him, and heard a few barked orders. Jovian
was never sure what was happening, or what was being said, only
that he was being moved somewhere, and evidently there were many
people involved in caring for him.

It wasn’t until much later that he
found out that the horn was originally blown because old man Nelson
had been accidentally killed by a stray arrow cutting through the
fog. Jovian had yet another reason to hate hunting.

CHAPTER TWO

_A
ngelica was up in
the
bathroom tending a broken nose Destra
had given her in arms practice when the horn blew. She peered out
the window to see the hunting crew come back; a litter dragging
behind a horse. As if on que there were crowds of people milling
around frantically, trying to see what was happening. Seeing the
prone person as Jovian, Angelica raced down into the fray as fast
as she could.

“Pull yourself together; have you lost
all control of your senses?” Grace helped the head cook Ashell to
stand and pawned her off on one of the other servants now standing
with them. “Now, we will need to get him cleaned up, dress his
wounds of course, and get him nice and comfortable.” By this it was
obvious what Grace meant: drug him heavily. “Angelica,” Grace
snapped her fingers a few times to get the girl’s attention, “go
oversee the preparation of his room. While you are at it, clip me
some belladonna, and gather some white willow bark from the stores
in the kitchen. I will need them.” Grace clapped her hands and
patted the horse equipped with Jovian’s litter on the behind,
easing it into motion. Now that Grace was in charge, everything
seemed to run a bit more smoothly than the near chaos from
before.

Angelica fell into step beside the
litter and smiled down at Jovian when he came around. He peered at
her through half closed eyes and cocked his head to the
side.

“Angie, am I imagining things, or are
you quite beat up?” Jovian asked in a very thick voice.

“No, you are not imagining things; I am
very beat up.” She smirked, but it only reminded her that her nose
was broke. She hoped Destra was wrong, and that it wouldn’t heal
crooked. She had already set it, but she couldn’t help feeling at
her face again.

Damn it
all
, she thought, looking behind her where
Grace ordered people around for the supervision of old man Nelson’s
funerary rites, for now the votary had been called from the chapel
to give the darkest hour prayer, a little late.

It didn’t take long to get Jovian
unloaded and settled into his second floor bedroom. Angelica stood
in the window, peering out at the back of the house where the last
of the group was only now dissipating.

“Now,” Grace’s brisk voice echoed down
the stonewalled hall, nearing the room. “What have we here?” she
asked, pushing her way through the servants to Jovian’s
side.

Sensing a long wait before seeing her
brother, Angelica left the room and headed to the bathroom to
finish cleaning up. After a few cranks on the indoor well, the
corner of Angelica’s tunic was sufficiently soaked, and she used it
to dab at the dried blood on her face. There really wasn’t much
point; she was going to have to bathe later anyway.

Peering out the small window to the
right, she saw her sisters and Destra trudging their way up the
front yard from the battlefield.

With a sigh, she stood and made her way
downstairs to the yard.

“What happened to Jovian?” Amber asked.
They had returned from training as soon as they heard the horn.
They arrived just in time to see Jovian being loaded into the house
on a litter. Of course, they were only getting half answers, and it
wasn’t until Destra grabbed the front of a servant’s shirt that she
was able to shake the entire story out of someone.

“But he’s okay?” Joya asked. The
rattled servant wasn’t one in the hunting party, so he hadn’t yet
heard that Jovian had been attacked by a huge beast.

“Yes,” the boy said as Destra put him
back down. “Your brother’s fine. He only suffered a broken leg and
wrist. Grace is attending to him now.”

It was then, as the boy Destra had just
violated was running off, that Angelica joined her
sisters.

“How is he? Have you seen him?” Amber
turned to her younger sister.

“Yes, I just came from his room. Grace
is in there now, so there is no luck trying to get in to see him.
He suffered some broken bones, and he is really confused with the
drugs, so he can’t make much sense. All in all, I would give it a
few hours before I tried to attempt a visit.”

“As I thought,” Joya piped in. “Come,
let’s make him some of his favorite tea and go up to see if Grace
could use some help.”

Much to their surprise, when they
arrived at the room with a piping hot cup of mint tea, Grace was
sitting in a rocking chair by the bed, knitting as he slept. A lit
pipe in a glass tray at her elbow billowed sweet smoke into the
darkened room. The three sisters were all happy to see the servants
were no longer in attendance, and that Grace was all done dressing
his wounds.

“How is he?” Angelica asked.

“He will live,” Grace sounded tired.
“He was a little confused, and not all of it was due to the drugs.”
Grace stood and gathered up her basket of yarn. “Would you girls
mind sitting with him for a while? I should go pay my respect to
Nelson.”

“Of course,” Angelica
agreed.

After the old lady cleared out of the
room, the girls gathered around Jovian’s bed. The two oldest
sisters pulled up chairs, while Angelica sat on the edge of his
bed.

“How long do you think he will be out?”
Joya asked.

“That all depends on what she gave
him,” Amber commented.

“It was a mixture of belladonna and
white willow bark,” Angelica supplied.

“Well, depending on how much belladonna
she gave him, he may be out for a while.” Joya had always been good
with herbs.

“I think his tea will get cold.” Amber
looked to the steaming cup on the night stand and
sighed.

It was late in the evening when Jovian
came around. The girls had all fallen asleep—Angelica at the foot
of the bed, Amber and Joya with heads resting on the sides of
it.

Jovian looked from person to person,
cracking a grin. He tried to sit up, but the pain in his right
wrist, not to mention the splint, didn’t allow for much mobility.
His struggling woke Joya and Angelica, who immediately aided him in
his efforts.

Yawning, Amber came to a few moments
later and smiled when she saw him.

The lingering scent of sweat and
dirt-soiled clothes provided evidence that the girls had stayed at
Jovian’s bedside, rather than washing up after their sparring
lesson. “Aren’t you all a sight?” he asked, scrunching his nose in
mock disgust.