"You are deshaida," Allia told her, patting her on the shoulder. "You are my sister. I would be honored to accept you into my clan."
"My father is going to adore you, Kerri," Tarrin told her, pushing her out to arm's length and looking down at her emotional eyes. He gave her a gentle smile. "You're inheriting two families, sister. Allia's and mine. My father will take to you like fish to water, and my mother and the Whiteaxe Clan of Ungardt will also be your family."
"The Selani on one side, the Ungardt on the other," Keritanima said with a cheeky grin, though she was sniffling. "I feel very safe."
"You should," Allia smiled. "We take care of our own."
"We do indeed," Tarrin agreed. "You've given us so much, Kerri. Wisdom, intelligence, and a sense of security. It's time you got back what you give out."
Keritanima stared up at him, her eyes losing everything that had always clouded them before. The Brat, pain, defensiveness, fear, worry, loneliness. He stared into the core of her, and he found beauty. She put her cheek on his shoulder and just held him for a long moment. Tarrin and Allia kept her close, and he happened to glance up to the massive Vendari warrior, who stood ever near her. His black eyes were a mystery, but the single eloquent nod told Tarrin everything the silent warrior felt inside.
Chapter 18
It was necessary time off.
Tarrin lounged in the baths with Allia while the rest of the Tower slept, letting the slight hiss of the hot water and the sound of dripping lull them as they laid on towels by the hottest part of the pool, soaking up the heat. It was needed time. Allia had been very quiet for the last few days, as she seemed to step back and allow Keritanima the room she needed to work. Allia usually wasn't that talkative, but it was still enough for Tarrin to notice it. She'd had to share Tarrin with the Wikuni, and he felt that she had done so with tremendous grace and civility. Allia and Keritanima were very dear friends, and he had seen that bloom in the last few days, bloom into the relationship necessary for Allia to accept Keritanima as a sister. But it didn't take away from the simple fact that Allia needed the same attention that Keritanima did, and Tarrin had been lack in his duties as her friend and brother to provide it. Allia's patience about the matter was very commendable, but Tarrin knew that it was time to remind her just how important she was to him.
Allia was his sister, but she was also his best, closest, and most personal friend. The love he had for her transcended normal definitions; he loved her as much as any member of his own family, and it was a love so intense and powerful that he felt lost when she wasn't close to him. It was as deep as a love could be between two people who weren't romantically involved. They were friends, siblings, confidantes, and partners. There was nothing that he couldn't tell her, nothing that he wouldn't do for her, and he knew she was the same. That intense trust, between two people that were naturally very suspicious, formed the cornerstone of a relationship that defied Tarrin's every attempt to rationalize it. She had been there for him when he needed her, and now she needed him. And he wouldn't fail her.
So he brought her down to the baths, one of the few places where Allia would truly relax, and massaged and pampered her into total contentment. Such personal attention was vital for her mental well-being, a very tactile and sensual assurance that she was loved and needed. Selani were a very sensual people, almost as dependent on their senses as the Were-cats were, because they lived in a world where the slightest misstep could bring death. By indulging in those senses, Tarrin put Allia's mind at ease, and it made her relax. She had been much too tense the last few days.
Allia sighed blissfully, her incredible blue eyes opening and staring directly into his own. "You do know how to spoil me, brother," she said with a gentle smile.
"You needed it," he replied. "You've been a bit nervous the last few days."
"It's the situation," she told him. "I don't feel comfortable being a thief. It goes against our ways."
"I know. I figured that was part of what was bothering you. But it was necessary."
"Yes, I'd have to agree," she admitted. "We aren't in a position where we can live by our codes. Survival is the first rule." She rolled over on her back and stretched languidly. "Besides, Keritanima did make it seem somewhat honorable."
"How is that?"
"By painting the church as an enemy of the katzh-dashi, who host us," she replied. "Stealing is wrong, but raiding one's enemy is more than acceptable. Until the Tower proves she is an enemy, I can find honor in striking back at her foes."
Tarrin chuckled. "That's one way to justify it."
"How do you justify it?"
"I don't," he shrugged. "I really don't care one way or the other."
"That's another way to justify it," Allia said with a smile, reaching out and nudging his shoulder. "What is this strange curiosity I see for Miranda?"
Tarrin looked at her. "I really have no idea," he replied.
"She is quite cute. I'm not sure how you'd feel sharing your bed with someone covered in fur."
"Allia!" Tarrin said in shock. "I don't feel that way about her!"
"You certainly feel something."
"I don't know what it is," he said. "I do like her, but something about her....sings to me. It's not romantic. I don't know what it is. I think of her as a friend, nothing more."
"She certainly seems to like you."
"I hope so," he replied. "I talked to Dar yesterday," he mentioned. "I think he's starting to get interested in Tiella."
"He needs a girlfriend," she said approvingly. "Tiella is a good woman."
"She'll be over here in a few days."
"I know. How have you fared without Jesmind?"
Tarrin gave her a strong look. "I guess I don't think about it," he said. "For some weird reason, I miss her."
"She meant alot to you, my brother," she told him. "I think that if your circumstances had been better, you would be married to her."
Tarrin sighed. "Maybe," he admitted. "She's too stubborn to make a good wife."
"She's just like you. That makes it a good match."
"Well thanks," he said with a snort. "How's class coming?"
"Much better now," she replied. "Yesterday I finally managed to understand the intricacies of weaving in multiple flows. I still need practice, though."
"Kerri can help with that."
"She's too busy with the scrolls."
"She needs to learn how to make time," Tarrin grunted.
"Like you made for me? This really was sweet, deshida."
"You're my sister, and you needed some extra attention," he smiled. "Besides, I longed to put my paws all over those places I'm not allowed to touch in company."
Allia laughed. "Don't start with me, brother," she warned with twinkling eyes.
"Maybe I just miss that about Jesmind."
Allia laughed again. "You're worrying me now," she teased.
"Just consider yourself lucky that I'm Were," he grinned, leaning up on his elbows. "If I were human, I'd be too busy staring at your bosom to give you the time of day."
"I get enough of that from the others, brother," she said. "I don't need it from you. What is it about human males that makes it impossible for them to look a woman in the eye?"
"Because there are better things to look at, I suppose," Tarrin shrugged. "Your eyes may be pretty, but to a human, they're not your most appealing attribute."
"Oh? And what would that attribute be?"
Tarrin grinned at her. "It depends on the tastes of the looker," he teased. "I've always been partial to tails. But you don't seem to have one, so I guess I'm left out." Tarrin snaked his tail up off the floor, letting it weave back and forth over his head to catch her attention. "And you can't tell me that Selani don't look."
"Of course we look," she challenged. "We just don't keep looking."
"That's no fun."
"Selani courtship is a serious affair," she told him. "Let's stop talking about this, before I start getting bad ideas and no way to carry the
m out. I'd feel dirty if I took a human for lover."
"No you wouldn't," he teased.
"Maybe not, if it were someone I respected," she admitted. "But I find humans to be...plain. They don't incite my interest."
"No wonder," he said. "What did you think of the teaching?" he asked, referring to the night of learning the basics of Sha'Kar.
"I noticed that it strikes a great resemblance to the Language," she replied. "Its structure is almost identical."
"I noticed. Maybe your people and theirs are distantly related. Some in the Tower think it may be true."
"It is possible," she said. "Our histories begin only about three thousand years ago, and our beginnings say we were a lost people, wandering the wilderness, until the Holy Mother's voice called out and led them into the desert, and into the true lands of peace and prosperity. Perhaps we are distantly related to them. It is possible." She put her chin on her arm. "But I don't think so. They vanished some two thousand years ago, and my people were firmly established before that happened. Had we been cousins, I'm sure there would have been contact and communication."
"Maybe. Perhaps we'll find out someday."
"Perhaps," she agreed. "Tarrin."
"Yes?"
"Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?"
Tarrin smiled. "I don't think you have to, sister," he said, reaching out and taking her slender, four-fingered hand into his huge paw, swallowing it up.
"Some things don't need to be said."
Keritanima was in a foul mood. She woke up after a long two days without enough sleep, and her shoulders throbbed furiously. Even the whisper of her red silk dress over those tender burns, that had blackened her skin and charred away her fur, made it feel like someone was dragging a wood saw over her skin. But in one way, she accepted that pain for what it meant, and what it did for her. They were the Selani brands, and they marked her as the sister in all but blood to a Selani warrior.
They told everyone who looked at them that she belonged.
She would gladly suffer that pain for the rest of her life if it meant that she was part of something that wasn't self-destructive. For her entire life, she had always stood outside, looking in through the window to long for what others had. She had wanted a family, but got the Erams. She wanted friends and joy, and got death and sorrow. She wanted happiness and peace, and got conniving, treachery, and murder. For the first time in her life since meeting Miranda, Keritanima felt good about something, felt there was a chance, that there was hope. It had lifted a tremendous weight off of her, a weight that had bogged down her soul for years. She had to keep them hidden, because there was absolutely no way for her to explain or justify them in the character of the Brat Princess, and in a way, that ate at her. She was proud of those brands, as proud of them as the Knights were of theirs, and she wanted the entire world to see them. But she had to keep them hidden, to keep up her appearances.
Keritanima's sense of peace only went so far to counter the effects of sleep deprivation and pain. She was in a truly black humor, so black that she stormed out of her rooms without saying a word, and giving no thought, no care, and no consideration to how others perceived it. The other Initiates were accustomed to Keritanima, so the word went out quickly that she had a look on her face that was worse than usual, and the hallways quickly depopulated before her.
Miranda watched her go, leaning up against the doorframe with Binter and Sisska behind her, a slight smile on her face. "My, that was abrupt," she mused. "It looks like you're in for an interesting day, Binter."
"So it seems, Miranda," he agreed in his deep voice. "I should bring a broom. She is likely to become violent by lunchtime."
Miranda chuckled. "May be," she agreed. "Binter, a boon of you."
"Yes?"
She reached into her bodice and withdrew a small note. "Take this to Jervis' office," she asked. "It shouldn't be too far out of your way, and I know you have little to do while her Highness in in class."
"I will deliver it after her Highness is in class," he promised.
"Enjoy," she told him with a straight face.
"Courage, my mate," Sisska said in a totally serious voice. Vendari humor tended to be subtle.
"I would rather battle an oni with my arms chopped off," he said soberly, then he went past Miranda and stalked out into the hallways behind the High Princess, to be nearby should she need assistance.
"I think this will be an eventful day," Sisska mused as they watched him go.
"Yes, I do believe that you're right," Miranda agreed. She looked back over her shoulder, and the five scrolls resting on the table. "A very eventful day indeed."
That day created a routine of sorts that became Tarrin's daily activity for the next month. The morning would be spent with the Council, as they and the Lorefinders continued to experiment and study, observing Tarrin's powers and trying to find a way to bring them back under control. The going was slow, because every attempt to create a weave strong enough to perform the task came up short, and the Lorefinders had to teach those weaves to the Council before each use, since only the most powerful of the katzh-dashi had a chance of containing Tarrin's raw power. It was exhausting for Tarrin, a mixture of effort, fear, and anxiety amplified by continued close contact with people that he didn't like. Of the Council, the only one he truly could say he liked was Koran Dar. The others all struck at him on a subconscious level that made him distrust them.
After lunch, he spent time reading in the library. Lilenne proved to be a wonderful librarian of sorts, and she always found for him books that were very interesting and also quite entertaining. She gave him books on High Sorcery and other types of Sorcerer's weaving, and that allowed him to understand how magic worked when it involved all seven Spheres. What his subconscious mind could grasp and use immediately, his conscious mind was slowly starting to comprehend. Though he couldn't practice, Tarrin learned a great deal about Sorcery through those books, for they taught which Spheres were used for which weaves, and explained the effects in some detail. If he ever tried to use them, it would only be puzzling out the magical strengths of the individual flows when they were woven together into completed spells. All of the Sorcerer's most common weaves were taught in those books, the same books that Inititates from higher grades were forced to read in conjunction with their organized classes. Weaves like solid air, to move things, warming the air, conjuring forth fire and lightning offensively, creating light, raising the earth, creating sound where none existed, controlling water, melding one element into another so as to weaken the first, like introducing water into rock to turn it to mud, affecting temperature in objects to make them burn, or cause them to freeze, generating barriers of both physical and magical natures, even the basics of how to raise Wards, and a very brief introduction to the conjuring of Elementals. The fundamentals of Illusion were covered, how they were mixtures of Air, Fire, Divine Power, and Water, and the tremendous advantages of them were explained in detail in a book devoted completely to the subject. Illusions were limited only be the imagination of the weaver and the amount of power he could put into it. The larger and more intricate the illusion, the more power it required, and separate weaves had to be made to simulate sounds and smells and things like heat from illusory fire. Tarrin absorbed it all, and he found himself getting sincerely interested in the idea of learning how to do all those things.
But his power was dwarfed by Keritanima's astronomical advancement. She rose three steps through the Initiate in one short month, awing and dazzling her teachers and katzh-dashi alike with her utter understanding and almost instinctive ability to learn, duplicate, and alter weaves. In a shockingly short time, Keritanima could perform weaves that full katzh-dashi had trouble weaving together, and do it with a precision that made them think she'd been weaving spells since birth.
The afternoon and evening was spent with Allia and Keritanima. Miranda had scribed the scrolls into a book, and then the scrolls were put back in the courtyard. And they began
to learn. It went much faster than any of them expected, because the langauge of the Sha'Kar bore a very striking similarity to the Selani tongue. Its structure was identical, and many of the words were hauntingly familiar, as if they had been extracted from the same root word. They all learned quickly, through their own unique advantages. Keritanima, because of her eidectic memory. Tarrin, because he had an innate aptitude for learning languages. Allia, because the language she was trying to learn was so similar to her native tongue. But what they didn't count on was Miranda. She managed to learn it herself, through her scribing and being present when the others practiced. They all agreed that their accents had to be atrocious, but they had managed to gain a proficiency with it.
But it was incomplete. Without an alphabet, it really didn't do them much good in trying to unravel the mystery of the spidery Sha'Kar script. None of the books had that information in them, and it forced Keritanima to begin making preparations to do what nobody had done in a thousand years...break the code of the Sha'Kar writing. She would have a distinct advantage over every other person who attempted it, because she could speak the language, and would be able to recognize words if she could puzzle out their letters. The written form they had used to learn it was phoneticized, Sha'Kar words written using the letters of the Common tongue's alphabet, so the learner could pick up pronunciation and inflection correctly. There was no relationship between the two's written languages, and that was why it wasn't going to be easy.
Tarrin made use of his ability to leave the grounds, and visited his family every four days. He was always careful to take only Dolanna, and he always left them in various places around the city while he went to go see his family. They had decided to take Anrak up on his offer, and spend the winter in Ungardt lands. Anrak was waiting for a break in the stormy early winter, trying for a few clear days that would let him get up to Tykarthian ports before the next storm, and port-hop his way home.
It was the day of that departure that Tarrin broke his routine and slipped out of the Tower in the pre-dawn hours, then ghosted his way through snowbound streets in Suld. They planned to leave on the highest tide, taking advantage of a clearing of the usually cloudy skies and constant mixture of rain and snow that made Suld famous for bad winters. It had been cold enough to make it snow for the last five days, and it had managed to pile up to impressive levels along the sides of the streets.
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