The Heartborn Mate

by D. Brumbley

  He smiled at the idea, and put on the ring she’d given him, but then stepped up to an Ironborn child at the side of the street where they stood. “Excuse me,” the little girl was cowering away from him, but her parents were trying to encourage her not to be afraid, though they looked pretty scared of him themselves. “Do you think you could help us out with these?”

  The little girl was shaking as she held out her hand, and they both dropped their rings into her palm. Once she had the rings, though, the girl felt a little more confident and she looked up at Candra as though she was going to scold her. “You hafta be nice to it or else it gets mad and makes bubbles.” She pointed her small finger to the spot where Candra had welded the rings back together, and there were little bumps there that weren’t smooth at all.

  “Can you tell it we’re sorry?” Orlando said without missing a beat. “We didn’t mean to make it mad.”

  The little girl nodded, since she had already made friends with the rings in her hand. “You’re lucky. It likes me.” She gave a weak smile and she looked at both of their hands to make sure she got the sizes right. She had a hard time with that part the most. Commonplace as it was among the Ironborn to watch a child playing with small slivers of metal, it was still fascinating to Orlando and Candra, who looked on with the appropriate Oooohs and Aaaahs as the little girl worked. She made them smooth and shiny, just like her daddy taught her. Before she gave the rings back to them, she turned to show her father. “Are they good, Daddy?”

  “They’re beautiful, sweetheart.” He crouched down behind his daughter and smiled over at Orlando and Candra, who were drawing quite a crowd. “Now, give them a kiss to make sure they remember you, and give them back. You did well.”

  She gave them a kiss like her father told her and then she shyly went back up and held out her hand with the rings. “Here you go. I told them to like you too.”

  Orlando took Candra’s ring and slid it onto the little finger of her left hand, then held out his right hand and took the ring on his own little finger before he stood up again, holding Candra’s hand and letting sparks fly freely back and forth between the rings as he wove his fingers with hers.

  Candra giggled a little, since it tickled her hand, but she noticed that people were genuinely fascinated with what went on between them. She had gotten so used to his power and sparks that it hardly even fazed her, unless he used his sparks in a completely different way. There was no getting used to the way that felt.

  They had quite a few spectators as they walked, and the sparks between their hands marked them beyond any possibility of mistake. The little girl apparently had quite a big mouth, and there were a number of other Ironborn children that came up and offered them presents of various kinds. Bracelets and rings, mostly. Some came up and offered Candra a necklace they made for her, and an Ironborn and a Stoneborn child came up to them at one point and began putting bits of stone into the jewelry. Things took shape as they walked, but they finally made it into Skyborn territory, then Oceanborn. In both places they were greeted with distance, but respect. The Fireborn looked at them curiously and didn’t approach, since they were all adults and had no children with them to be fascinated by their passage, but Orlando and Candra just kept walking.

  By the time they made their way through most of the compound, there were sparks jumping off them from all the pieces they wore. They walked just outside of Nick’s house to see him sitting on the front porch with Zara in his lap. Both of them watched the whole spectacle as Candra and Orlando made their way to them, and Candra stopped at the steps leading up to Nick’s porch. She took off a chain she had been given and walked up to hand it over to Nick. It was still warm and buzzing with the mixed energy of Shadowborn and Lightborn together. “A symbol of our loyalty.”

  Nick took it cautiously, and his hand jumped as the electricity hit him. The second touch was easier, though, and he took the chain with a grateful nod. It was still warm to the touch, and he knew it would never lose its potency completely. “Thank you, Candra.” Zara hadn’t gotten off his lap as he took it, and it wound itself around his wrist twice and linked together seamlessly, adding itself to the others up and down his arm.

  Candra glanced down at Zara and just stared at her for a moment before she turned and walked back to take Orlando’s hand, and the sparks renewed between them. She kissed his cheek as they started to walk off, and then she whispered to him again. “I haven’t seen Aura at all.”

  “She doesn’t leave her house much these days. She’s permanently shifted anyway now, for the next couple months until she has Ziem’s puppies.” There was a slightly bitter tone to his voice as he said it, but that was why they didn’t talk about Aura very often.

  They had to go through the Earthborn quarter and the Forestborn as well before they got back to the gate nearest their home, and so they started in through the Earthborn sector. It was a strange place to be, to be sure, since many of the people around were more than half buried as they passed by. Everyone was fairly filthy, and there was enough mud on all of them to build another country out of it.

  It was strange to see people in the ground instead of roaming around as wolves or even as people, but it was also interesting to Candra to see all the ways that different wolves enjoyed spending their time. She kept talking, though, since none of the Earthborn seemed particularly interested in talking to them. “I understand that it’s only been a few months since all of this happened, but you don’t seem the slightest bit happy for her.”

  “I am.” He said softly, but he was looking down at the ground. “I’m glad she has Ziem to take care of her. I don’t know anything about him, but if she’s spent enough much time with him and decided so quickly that she wanted him to be her husband and the father of her puppies, then she knows what she’s doing.”

  “I heard the story about them. That he was the one that was exiled for being with her.” She looked around in confusion as they walked, not understanding why the Earthborn were being so quiet. Their brown eyes were on the two of them the whole time, but none of them moved to greet them or even say a single word to them. “I know I’m not, you know, perfect or anything. And I know it was only a short time ago, but I hope that someday it won’t be me versus Aura to you.”

  “It’s not.” He squeezed her hand, and the sparks flew brighter between them. “And you don’t have to be perfect. It’s us now. It’s not you against Aura. It’s us against the Council. And then when this is all over, it’s just us.”

  “But it’s not perfect.” She had been in the background during the conversation between him and Aura, and while Ziem had been much more understanding, it hurt Candra to watch Orlando with Aura. She kept quiet about it most of the time, since it was so soon afterward, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Especially now that she was so in love with him.

  He stopped in the middle of their walk to look at her, pulling as much power from her in one draw as he could, since he knew she was more comfortable if she wasn’t buzzing with it all the time. It caused sparks to fly all over his dark clothing, lighting up the night around them and making several of those around them flinch back, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at her.

  “No, it’s not perfect. I’m not a knight in shining armor, or king of some far-off kingdom seeking your hand in marriage. And you’re sure as hell not a damsel in distress. At least not anymore.” He kissed her, trying to make her smile. “You’re more than that. And I like to think there’s more to me than a storybook description. There’s more to all of us than just that. So it’s not perfect, but it’s ours.” He kissed her again, sending sparks up and down her spine that made every hair she had stand on end. “I love you. I hope that’s enough.”

  Candra kissed him back for a long time without saying a single word as she continued to pour more of her energy into him. It made her feel so relaxed that he almost had to hold her up. “I love you too. More than anything else in the world.” She kissed his cheek and looked around as they
stepped into the Stoneborn sector. She looked back at him with a smirk before she ran around to hop up onto his back. “If you don’t feel like being the knight, how about the horse?”

  He laughed and carried her a little ways through the Stoneborn sector where they were greeted slightly more often than in the Earthborn sector, with a few of the wolves there complimenting them on the precious stones they had received so far that night.

  Soon they were into the Forestborn sector, which was along the fence line because it was actually just a section of forest that had been claimed from the woods, far beyond the original boundaries of the compound. Most of them were already asleep, up in the trees and wound into the branches above their heads. Those few that were lying about on the grass along the ground, though, greeted them with smiles that were as free-flowing and generally open as Forestborn often were.

  Eventually she jumped down from Orlando’s back and stepped away slightly to admire some of the absolutely beautiful plants and flowers. They were so perfect, and even all the renderings of them in books didn’t do justice to the real thing. “They are just…gorgeous.”

  “Thank you.” A young-sounding voice said from behind the flowers where she hadn’t seen someone laying out. The flowers moved aside to show a woman that was wearing a shirt and skirt made out of thick woven leaves. It was obvious it wasn’t her normal clothing because of how flimsy it looked, but it served the purpose of covering her for the moment at least. “I worked hard on them this afternoon.”

  Candra giggled in surprise as the woman became visible. “I need to come to you for help with hiding. That would really up the level of the game.” She turned to look at Orlando.

  The woman looked up at her and Orlando and her eyes widened for a moment as she rolled away in shock. “You’re…”

  “Just walking through.” Candra answered quickly. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” She got up a little, walking barefoot through the grass that lay down to protect her feet as if it was happy to be walked on by her. “I just…didn’t expect to see you out here. I thought you’d be with a bunch of guards or something.”

  “A bunch of guards? I think the guards get kind of scared of us too.” Candra countered with another nervous laugh.

  The woman giggled and looked over Candra’s decorated and bejeweled arms. “I see you’ve received gifts from the other packs. They’re very pretty.”

  Candra looked down at everything that she had gathered and she nodded with a grin. “Most of them were from little children. They were all so cute. I’ve not really been around children very much before, so I think I was more afraid of them than they were of me.”

  That got another giggle from the Forestborn, and the woman looked up at Orlando with an appraising up-and-down. “Well, I’m not a child, but I feel an obligation to represent my people. You two are a little too Stone and Iron right now.” She whisked away gracefully to a bunch of ferns that were all grown together, and under which there were a few other people she revealed sleeping, wrapped intimately in each other’s arms. It made Orlando a little uncomfortable and he looked away, but the happy little Forestborn didn’t think anything of it as she looked through a woven basket for something, then stepped back over to them.

  She knelt down in between her flowers and pushed them aside, making them lie down facing away from her as she planted two very small seeds between the small blades of grass and laid her hands over them with her eyes closed.

  Candra was captivated as she watched the Forestborn work with the tiny seeds, since she hadn’t watched a Forestborn use their power so actively before. She watched with the innocence and curiosity of a child, because in some ways, she still really was. She wasn’t completely changed in four months, and seeing things that she had read about come to life were like miracles.

  As the seeds sprouted and wound through her fingers, the Forestborn’s hands danced with the seedlings, caressing and encouraging them higher and higher out of the earth. They came up into two intertwined flowers with black petals and golden edges to them, with a scent that Candra could actually smell from where she stood, it was so powerful.

  She let the flowers bloom brightly for a moment, then, when they were at the peak of their potential, pulled both up gently out of the ground, their roots coming out more or less intact under her gentle touch. “For you both.” She looked at Orlando with a giggle. “Yes, males can get flowers too.”

  Candra glowed a little bit brighter with her excitement, and she took the flower and tucked it behind her ear after she admired it. “It smells wonderful and they are so beautiful! Thank you so much.”

  “Now you are properly adorned.” The Forestborn said with a bright smile, looking up at Orlando as he took a deep breath of the flower’s scent.

  “It’s…I’ve never smelled anything quite like this before.” Orlando said with a hazy look at it, and then took another long sniff of it to try and place the scent.

  “It is a rare plant, and doesn’t survive long except under very specific conditions.” She was still smiling broadly, as Orlando reached out and put his hand on the tree next to him to hold himself up as he took another deep breath of the flower’s scent.

  Candra blinked a few times and yawned once as she shook her head a little bit. She started to feel a little out of it, sedated and sleepy. They had been walking and touring for awhile, and they had been very actively busy earlier between chasing and catching each other. “What conditions?”

  “It only lives in remote areas. Because if it is planted near any other wildlife whatsoever, it always dies.” She sounded supremely sad as she said it, but there was something else behind her deep green eyes as she looked back and forth between Candra and Orlando, whose eyes were starting to close on their own as he lost his grip on the tree and started to fall, looking like he was drunk or drugged.

  Candra felt confused as she noticed Orlando fall, so she rushed over to him and tried to shake him awake. “Orlando? Wake up. We have to go home.”

  “You are going to go home, Candra.” The Forestborn said with the same sadness in her voice, and a flash in her eyes that Candra recognized too late. The flower behind Candra’s ear suddenly grew roots that wrapped around her neck. The blossom shoved itself into her face, and its scent was the only breath she could take. “Your old masters have missed you.”

  When Candra gasped to scream, all she could do was inhale the scent of the flower, and it overwhelmed her quickly. She still tried to scream out for help, but it was muffled as she fell to the ground, unconscious.

  * * * * *

  The Forestborn female turned around and hurried to her companions in the ferns and kicked some of them awake, the plants slapping the others on her behalf to get them up. “Guys? Guys!” She whispered harshly. “Change of plans. Get moving. I’ve got ‘em.” She said triumphantly, as she turned back to Orlando and Candra’s fallen bodies, making sure the grass grew up over them both to cover Candra’s glow and the occasional spark from Orlando.

  Several of them untangled to get up, but they still weren’t exactly happy about being woken. “That was easy.” Another female said as she wrapped herself in ivy. “Let’s take ‘em, then.”

  A few of them grabbed the Shadowborn and began pulling out backpacks filled with electrical cables and equipment. They bound his hands and feet with the cables over the gold and silver he already wore, forcing the metal to cut into his arms. The first Forestborn was trying to take Candra, but the first few times she tried to touch the Lightborn, she pulled away with a wince. “I can’t even move this bitch. She’s been out in the sun so much she’s nearly got a tan.” The power ricocheting through her system was more than she could hold, and she leaned against a tree just to have an outlet for it. Above their heads, they watched the tree leap skyward with new growth as she got rid of some of the power she held.

  Two of the males came over to her and looked down at the Lightborn as they bent down to try and pick her up.
“All three of us try together.” One said, hoping that they could distribute the energy a little more evenly between three of them.

  She shook her hands out and bent back down to try again, but they all dropped her at the same time, unable to handle her for long, and their small cries of pain were attracting attention from others, who luckily seemed to be amused by their antics, thinking they were trying to help a drunk comrade. “We need to move, and fast would be better than slow.”

  The men growled at the fact that they couldn’t get the Lightborn up, so they just used the excess energy to cover her up completely and keep her trapped to the ground. “Come on then.” Another said quickly in a harsh whisper. “They’re useless without the other anyway. Let’s take this one and go.”

  The first female was conflicted about it but she wasn’t the one in charge, so she just helped the others get the Shadowborn into a bundle and up onto her friends’ shoulders. Afterward she went back to Candra’s body and helped lock her down further, tangled in vines so thick she wouldn’t even be able to scream when she finally came to. Then she took the flower from where it was still lying close to Candra’s mouth and re-planted it in the ground near her face, so it would be the first thing Candra saw when she woke up.

  “Sweet dreams, Godling.” She leaned down and took a deep breath of the scent of the flower, since she was immune to it as a Forestborn, then got up and shifted right through her flimsy leaf-clothing and ran after her friends on all fours.

  XII

  The late morning sun was the only thing strong enough to wake Candra from her slumber, and when she did, she still couldn’t scream with foliage wrapped around her face. When her panic finally passed, anger set in, anger that she hadn’t known she had inside of her in the first place. It set the living plants around her on fire with the magnified sunlight raging in her veins, and burned her robes a bit, but she was able to shake off the dead plants after they withered away, as if they’d been blasted by the desert sun.