“Mead mostly,” the man clarifies, “unless you grow barley.”
“Mead works,” Tannis nods agreeably. “I’m Tannis; this here’s Keyon.”
“Konnard.” He extends a hand and shakes. “My wife, Ayley, Nomi and Brylen.” With the last two names, he points at the little girl flirting with Keyon and the nursing baby. “You’re from the Fortress?” he asks Chantri.
“Same as you. Still have cousins there.”
“Are you…um…magic?” the woman asks, biting her lip.
“Touched,” Chantri replies with a smirk, snapping her fingers and raising the room’s heat enough to feel the difference. “Comes in handy on days like today.”
“Not a lot of big forest out here,” Tannis adds. “We’d be hauling wood and burning sheep dung. Stink the place up, besides breathing all that smoke.”
“Is everyone here…Touched?” Konnard asks.
“Nah.” Tannis waves away the suggestion. “I used to roam with Half-hand and the Owl Creek pack up north. Got tired of fighting, looking over my shoulder like a man with his head on backwards. Keyon here is nothing special, that’s for sure.” He elbows Keyon and chuckles. “Rimma over there and her sister, Angel, aren’t Touched, but there’s something wrong with them regardless.” He laughs over that as my sister glowers at him.
With a hand clamped down on Keyon’s shoulder, Tannis heaves himself up. “Off to the wall,” he sighs and nods at Chantri. “You coming?”
“On your heels.” She grabs her bow and follows the two men out.
Konnard and his family fold into the Colony’s embrace, led away to quarters somewhere in the warren of buildings. Rimma and I leave the kitchen behind, toting a bucket of hot water, our footsteps padding in the opposite direction to our second floor room where she disarms, and cleans and polishes her weapons before washing and changing into dry clothes.
“Did you know Tannis was once of the People?” I ask her as I sit cross-legged on our bed.
“No.”
“Does it change anything for you?”
“No.” She runs a rag over her bow, peering up at me questioningly, my inquiries clearly annoying her.
“Do you still want to go to the Fortress?” I press on.
“Do you still want to stay here?”
“Yes.” I’ll answer her question even if she won’t answer mine. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Somewhere safe, where the world is perhaps, not innocent, but hopeful. Where we can be loved.”
“Are you in love, Angel?” She hangs the bow on the wall by the stock and starts on her knives. Her voice sounds even, almost calm, but her shoulders stiffen as she waits for my reply, her hands moving with measured control.
“Would that bother you?” I ask. Now I’m the one avoiding answers.
“We’re linked,” she replies, facing me directly, the dagger a bright needle in her hand. “Not only because we’re twins, Angel, not because I swore a vow. Sometimes, I think I don’t exist. At times, I feel invisible here, within these walls, when I’m with you. As if you’re the only one created of flesh, the only one worthy of life, the woman who counts.” She begins stripping off her clothes. “Only when I’m on the wall, armed, eyes peeled for enemies, then I’m alive. My blood runs, my heart pumps and you don’t exist. I want our enemies to come. I want the fight, the danger; it makes me feel real.”
Her eyes meet mine, waiting for my response. I might be gazing in a mirror, the image of my own body naked before me. “I was invisible in the kitchen just now,” I tell her. “There are so many times when I don’t feel seen or heard because I’m with you, because you’re the more…powerful, the more real.”
“So we have something in common besides our bodies.” She washes and slips into my old trousers, a light wool pullover and ragwear shirt. She sits beside me on the bed and takes my hand. “I’m sorry, Angel. I’m sorry for my anger and resentment, for the cruel words and wishes. I would change if I knew how. How do I change ash back into a tree? Bury it in a garden and plant a new seed maybe? Give up on the ash and start over?” She kisses my cheek, rises and buckles on her belt, sliding the knives into place. “I love you,” she says with a smile and leaves the chamber.
**
“What do you see?” I stand once again in a doorway, reaching toward Priest with something invisible to my eye, something he explains is as real and tangible as sunlight and heat, song and prayer, all invisible in and of themselves. “Am I here? Do I exist?”
He’s bare-chested, dressing in his chamber, my entrance uninvited and unexpected. He sits on the edge of his bed and studies me, seeing inside me or through me. “At its simplest, red for fear,” he starts, his voice soft, “for your right to survive in a physical body in a physical world. All these colors flow through you, some burning with desperation, others a weak flicker fighting for recognition.” His hand touches his lower belly. “Orange through here. Your sex and pleasure, your desire to belong. Every one of us, Angel, struggles to fill these needs, to break from confining strictures and find our balance. Yellow for your power to stand steady in your own identity.” His fingers press the center of his chest. “Green here. Your right to love and be loved, unconditionally and with compassion. Blue at your throat to hear and speak the truth. Indigo at the center of your forehead, for wisdom in the form of forgiveness and compassion, and the top of your head, violet for although you reside in a body, you are more than flesh.”
“Am I real?” Despite all he’s told me, he hasn’t answered my question.
“I don’t know,” he replies and touches his throat, his truth spoken. “But to me you’re quite real.”
“And Rimma?”
“The same answer.” He stands up.
“I want to be present, not disappearing in and out of life.”
His body vanishes, his voice querying from the air, “Am I less real?”
“I’m not a light-bender, Priest. I don’t know what I am.”
He blinks back into existence, still standing by his bed. “I haven’t your answers, Angel. Only my own impressions. To me, you’re as much a woman of flesh as any other I’ve met.”
My face heats at his words, and I force myself to look away, to notice his sparse room, the chair by the shuttered window, a small round table with a book and knife, a candle—such an odd thing for someone who can direct light. His clothes hang from wooden pegs in a corner, a sheathed sword among the folds. Nothing of the room speaks to the leadership or power that resides in this man.
Slowly my eyes drift back to him, and I force out my clogged words before they choke me, “Will you…Could we…I want to…
be
…with you.” I can’t say fornicate or fuck; I just can’t. If he doesn’t know what I mean, I still refuse to say it.
He blinks at me and smiles. “Before the breaking of the world, some people called it ‘making love.’”
A huge breath gusts out of me as my face blushes crimson. I fan myself and clear my throat. “That,” I say.
“Are you using me to prove something to yourself?” he asks, sitting again on the bed.
“Do we have to
discuss
it?” I’m mortified. My eyes must be large as saucers.
“Yes, we do,” he says. “A little.”
“Why?” I feel myself panicking, fighting the urge to flee the room.
“Because I don’t want regrets. No awkwardness after. I want you to be clear with yourself and with me.”
Another giant breath dragged in, I hold it while I attempt to think. I can’t think one thought, my head in a tangled knot. My breath blows from me as I sag against the wall and laugh, reckless and courageous, the truth bubbling free. “I don’t know, Priest. Because I want to prove I’m real, yes, because I’m in love with you¸ because I’m alive right now, because there’s pain everywhere I turn and wonderful potential here, because I can choose to ask you and you can choose to accept or deny me. Because, because, because. More reasons I’m sure. If you need better than that, just tell me “no” and I’ll leave and think up more.” I slap a hand over my mouth and laugh.
With a chuckle, he rises again from the bed, gives the door a kick closed, and pulls me into an embrace, kissing my forehead, along the side of my face, and finding my lips. His tongue toys at my teeth, my tongue, small bites on my lower lip. The candle abruptly jumps with a finger of flame, the room warming, the smell sweet. Music whispers softly in the corners, startling me, magic pervading the very air, cocooning us from the sounds of the world.
I push away from him, catching my breath.
His head at a tilt, he looks at me curiously.
“This is all new for me,” I tell him. “I’m a…dove.”
“Tell me to stop, Angel, and I will.” He waits for me to breathe, to gather myself, to risk the first step back into his arms, to seek his lips, to coax his tongue from his mouth. I hold his ebony shoulder, the back of his neck as we breathe each other’s breath. His lips move across my jaw and down my throat, bending to my shoulder. He turns me, my back to him, lifts aside my hair to kiss the nape of my neck, pulling the ties of my skirt, the fabric sliding down my legs to the floor, his fingers deftly working the buttons of my shirt. I hear his breath, feel his desire as if I too read the light and heat streaming between us.
My eyes closed, I relax in waves, my body tensing with each new movement, each touch, each sensation before I let go, trusting, easing away from my cluttered thoughts and naive insecurities. I melt into the pure physical pleasure of his attentions, allowing him to lead me. My shirt falls open. From behind me, his hand cups my breast, fondles me, nipples buffed between his fingers. His hand slides down into my linens, into the soft hair between my legs, finding me slick, sensitive, quivering. I breathe in small gasps, unable to help myself.
Facing him again, I step out of my linens. My shirt slides from my arms. I stand naked before his smile. “Undress me,” he says. My lips track the length of his neck, my tongue in the hollow of his throat, kisses across his bare chest, on hard nipples. He tastes of salt, smells faintly of sweat. His trousers untie and slide down his legs, kicked aside, his male nakedness not completely foreign to me, but the intimacy overwhelming. He kisses me, his unfinished arm crooked behind me, my back arched, his hand guiding mine down, showing me how he wants to be touched. His fingers play me, reach into me slowly, out and in and out, wetness squelching. Knees trembling, I can barely stand, barely concentrate on my own hand, on him, lost in the rocking motion between us and the steady caress of his fingers.
The bed keeps me from falling, Priest pulling me to stretch beside him, to stroke him as he slides his dark hands over my body, his almond-shaped eyes glinting in the candlelight. He lifts my back, arches me toward him, sucks my breasts, his tongue on my nipples, on my belly, between my legs, his fingers exploring, my heart firing, body aching with my need for him. I can’t help groaning and shuddering, shivers sweeping over my skin. He rolls over, me on top, an explorer with a mission, seeking the uncharted pleasures of his body. I use the respite to taste his salty skin, lips and tongue traveling his chest, tickling the hard contours of his abdomen, filling my mouth with him. I work for those moans, his hand in my hair, his hips moving, my tongue sliding over him.
He draws me up and under him, my legs open, hips lifting. He holds my eyes, gazing into me, through me into my heart. I behold myself reflected in his deep irises, a woman of flesh and desire. He slides into me, slowly, the sting merging with pleasure, every cell on fire, my body rising to meet him as the rhythm of our love-making builds. He watches me, holding me there as we rock, as I gasp, clutching at him, writhing beneath him, my eyes closing, head thrown back, my body surging through waves of release. His muscles tighten; he throbs within me, his breath leaving him in guttural cries.
Catching our breath, we stay locked there, spent, dead weight in a tangled embrace, chuckling and sighing. He kisses the tip of my nose, rolls off me, whispers love in my ear and draws his blankets over us.
19
~Rimma~
My sister is fucking Priest. She hasn’t told me so, but she doesn’t need to; it’s so stunningly obvious. She no longer shares my bed, has bubbles in her head instead of brains, and smells like sex. I suppose I don’t blame her; he’s handsome and powerful. She could do a whole world worse. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a man’s arms, not without good reason, not without something pretty fucking valuable in return.
The wall suits me better than the bed, a loaded crossbow cradled in my arms.
Of course, I’m bored to epic proportions, standing in the crunchy snow and icy wind, staring at gray rocks, the occasional bird inspecting a seed. The few raids we’ve suffered have all happened farther up the trail on the steads outside our gates. By the time we get word, the damage is long done: stores sacked, livestock gone, a rape or two committed, broken bones and a call for stitches.
“We need patrols,” I mutter for the hundredth time.
“That’s the hundredth time you’ve said that,” Chantri complains in exasperation.
“And we’ll get that when?” I ask. “When children are stolen? When someone ends up with his throat cut? What’s the Council waiting for?”
“We don’t have the men and women to spare,” she explains, unnecessarily, since I’ve heard it all before. “The Colony needs every able hand in the fields.”