She nodded. “Surely she will, though. She’s loved you since the day I met her. And for quite some time before.”
“That doesn’t mean she’ll be able to change our relationship.”
“True,” she conceded. “But if that’s what she says today, I won’t accept it as an answer. Not a final one.”
“She’s doomed,” Andira said with a laugh. Her amusement quickly sank beneath a wave of startled awe. “You mean that. You’ll fight for me. For her.”
“Yes, I will. So will Lhyn.” That much she knew for certain.
“Great goddess above.” Andira stared at her, a tiny smile tilting her lips. Without another word, she leaned in for a passionate kiss that only ended when the door banged open.
“Father said I should wait, but you’re never going to finish kissing. Well met!” Jaros dashed across the deck to wrap his arms around Andira’s waist.
“Well met, Jaros.” Giving him a happy warmron, she added, “You’re right. We’ll be kissing until your Rite of Ascension and beyond.”
“Ugh,” was the eloquent response.
Salomen laughed and could not help mussing his hair, though he was reaching the age where that wasn’t always well received. “In truth, we’re practicing. It’s a skill like any other. We’ll need to practice all the time.”
“Yuck. It’s not a skill I’ll ever want.”
With a wink at her, Andira bent down to his level. “Now that you’re here, I can give you the gift I brought from Whitemoon. But there’s a problem.” She pointed at the transport. “My bag is still in there. If you fetch it for me, I can–”
“I’ll get it!” He was running down the steps before Salomen could remind him to wear a rain cloak.
“That was exploitative,” she teased. “Using a little boy to keep yourself dry.”
“That was delegation. They taught me that skill when I became Lancer. Along with this one.” Andira kissed her, difficult though it was when they were smiling.
It became impossible when Jaros returned and groaned, “Not again!”
He dragged them indoors, where Andira was gladly received by Shikal and Nikin. She gave a bouncing Jaros his gift, then distributed the others along with tales of where and how she had found them. Lhyn and Ekatya came down in time to receive their own gifts: a ragged, stained book that Lhyn pounced on with a happy whoop, and a dusty bottle of grain spirits which Ekatya generously offered to share.
Salomen finally extracted them by announcing that Andira needed to rest and change before evenmeal. The four of them traipsed upstairs, where Ekatya pulled Andira into a warmron as soon as the bedroom door closed behind them.
“Palm touches aren’t enough,” she said. “It’s so good to see you.”
“And you.” Andira closed her eyes, her happiness obvious even to a sonsales. “Have you killed Admiral Greve yet?”
An inelegant snort escaped. “No, but if Fleet had access to my fantasies, I’d be court-martialed in two pipticks.”
“Excuse me,” Lhyn interjected. “I thought I was the one starring in your fantasies? Or Andira,” she added with a wicked tilt to her smile.
That startled everyone in the room.
“Wading right into the deep water, are you?” Salomen asked.
She shrugged. “Life is too short to tiptoe around subjects we all need to discuss.”
“Agreed,” Andira said. “Shall we, then?” She led Salomen to the cushioned window seat, while Lhyn and Ekatya scooted the two chairs closer and made themselves at home. “Let’s be certain we’re all starting from the same place,” she began.
Salomen watched her effortlessly take the lead, explaining what she knew and what she had guessed, then inviting the others to fill in the missing pieces. She set a tone of ease and comfort which, though not necessary for either Salomen or Lhyn, had a visibly calming effect on Ekatya.
That is a politician’s answer, Salomen had often said when Andira danced too fluidly around a topic. But here was the other side of that skill: an ability to bring people together and make each one feel equally heard. Nor was Salomen immune to the effects, even knowing what she was doing. It was remarkable and, she decided, really quite attractive.
Andira slipped their hands together, silently acknowledging that she had sensed the surge of emotion.
“It’s well outside my comfort zone,” Ekatya was saying. “But I’ve been outside that zone since our first foursome Sharing.”
“Why?” Lhyn asked.
“Because I lost the option of privacy. Acknowledging this”—she waved a hand, unwilling to name it—“to Andira is one thing. Knowing that Salomen is feeling every detail, too? And you?” She shook her head. “If I’d had the choice, neither of you would ever have known. I would have protected you from it.”
“In my experience,” Salomen said as gently as she could, “protecting others from the truth ends up hurting them.”
“My experience is different.”
“I understand that,” Andira said. “Protecting others is part of your job. You’re protecting your crew right now. They don’t know the conditions you had to accept in order to keep your command. Nor should they.”
Ekatya nodded, her emotional signature radiating relief at this recognition.
“But there is a difference between professional and personal,” Andira continued. “Lhyn deserves your truth. So do I.”
That hit Ekatya like a posthead to the chest. “I—oh. I didn’t think of it that way. You always know my truth.”
“I know your emotional truth. I don’t always know the source of it.”
“Andira.” Her voice was almost plaintive. “Are you really offering this? And Salomen, can you honestly say you don’t mind? Because I remember your fight the day of the windstorm. Or rather, I remember talking Andira through the aftermath.”
Andira squeezed her hand. This answer had to be hers.
“That was not my finest moment,” Salomen admitted. “But it wasn’t truly about you. It was about Andira being the Lancer when I wanted her to be my bondmate. I was unfair to her and it—” She swallowed. “It cost the lives of thirteen producers.”
Andira tried to stop her, but she held up a hand.
“I was wrong about many things that day. I’ve tried to put right what I could. This is one of them.”
Ekatya shook her head. “Guilt is the wrong reason—”
“It’s not guilt,” Salomen interrupted. “It’s seeing clearly. It’s understanding that Andira has room in her heart to love us both, and loving you won’t change the fact that I’m her divine tyree. It’s learning that I have room in my heart to love her and Lhyn, too. From what I see and sense, Lhyn has always had that room. The only question remaining is, do you?”
“Do I,” Ekatya repeated with a wry smile. “When didn’t I? You could probably answer that better than me. No, the only question remaining is, should I? Should we? There’s so much that could go wrong. We’d be asking so much more of each other. What happens if Andira and I get into a fight? For every other issue, I can count on Lhyn for advice or input. Or even just a sympathetic ear. Isn’t it a bit much to expect her to advise me on my love life with—?” She stopped, once again reluctant to put a name to it.
“If you and Andira fight, Lhyn isn’t the one to advise you,” Salomen said. “I am.”
Andira let out a laugh at her wide-eyed surprise. “She’s right. No one knows me better. Not even Lhyn, who sees through everyone.”
“That’s not true. I can’t see through Salomen.”
“You see more than you think,” Salomen assured her, and was rewarded with a bright smile.
“It makes sense, though.” Lhyn turned to Ekatya. “You worry about adding burdens, but a social arrangement like this is about sharing burdens. Lifting them.”
“Not just burdens,” Andira put in. “Love, as well.”
A wave of recognition came from Ekatya as she looked between the two of them. “A love shared is doubled, but a burden shared
is halved. That’s what Grams used to say. I forgot about that until now.”
“Take your grandmother’s wisdom,” Lhyn said. “You’re treating this like a temptation, trying to find reasons why you shouldn’t let yourself do it. What are the reasons you should do it?”
“You,” Ekatya said instantly. “It would make you happy.”
Salomen smiled to herself. Ekatya and Andira really were two seeds in the same pod. They would deny themselves for duty, for responsibility, for honor…but when it came to their bondmates, they would give anything in their power.
Lhyn rose from her chair, stepped behind Ekatya, and leaned over to wrap her arms around her chest. “Yes, it would,” she murmured. “But don’t do it for me. Do it for you. For once in your life, tyrina, do what you want instead of what you think you should.”
With a pulse of yearning, Ekatya gripped Lhyn’s forearms and closed her eyes. “I do want it,” she said so quietly that Salomen had to strain to hear. “It’s obvious things are changing with us. All of us. These foursome Sharings, your brain healing—we’re forging new connections and strengthening old ones and fucking Hades, yes, I want it.” She opened her eyes to look straight at Andira. “But I don’t think I can handle this magnitude of change. Not when I’m dealing with so much on the Phoenix. I need stability here. To start a new physical relationship—”
“Who said it had to be physical?” Andira asked.
She frowned. “That usually goes along with this sort of thing.”
“Eventually, yes. But we’re making our own rules, aren’t we?”
“This is a big change for me, too,” Salomen agreed. “I’m happy to put off the physical aspect for now.”
“I think it would make things easier for all of us,” Lhyn added. “Let us get accustomed to a smaller set of new parameters before introducing a larger set.”
“You make it sound like a field study.” Ekatya leaned to the side, meeting her eyes. “You’re sure about this.”
“I’m sure if you are.”
“Before you ask me,” Andira said as Ekatya turned to her, “I’ve felt Salomen these past five days. She’s not doing this as penance. She speaks truth when she says it’s about seeing clearly.” Her voice softened. “And I would very much welcome the opportunity to spend the kind of time with you that she has with Lhyn. Time where we learn how to let go.”
“That might take more time than your sun has left in its life cycle,” Ekatya muttered. But her eyes were bright, and she was coming to a decision. “Well, it looks like I’m outnumbered…”
“Ekatya,” Lhyn said in an exasperated tone. “It’s not a majority vote.”
“She’s hooking you,” Salomen informed her, raising an eyebrow at Ekatya’s sudden grin. “Don’t bite the hook.”
“Too late. Besides, what kind of captain would I be if I weren’t willing to explore the unknown?”
“Not the kind Andira could love, that’s certain.” She glanced at her bondmate, who seemed to have stopped breathing.
“Is this really going to happen?” Despite her confident leadership of the discussion, Andira was stunned by the outcome.
“Looks like it,” Ekatya said. “What do we do now?”
Salomen slid out of the window seat and sank to a cross-legged position on the floor. “Now we do what you’ve wanted to since you arrived.”
The others took their positions with alacrity, and soon they were deep into a Sharing that set both Ekatya’s and Andira’s minds at ease. It was clear to all that no decision had been made for the wrong reasons. They were in this for the sake of happiness.
Yet in the midst of this joy, Salomen was pierced by an unexpected pang of loss. She missed her mother now more than ever. There was so much she wanted to tell her, so many lessons she had learned. She could picture them on a trail, sitting on a fallen log to eat midmeal and discuss this unexpected new path in her life.
Nashta hadn’t deemed any lover good enough for her daughter. She had commiserated on Granelle’s small size and limited choices, advising greater involvement in caste politics.
You must look further afield, she had said. The ones worthy of you aren’t in Granelle.
Loss was leavened by amusement as Salomen imagined her response today.
I followed your advice, Mother. Do you think the State House and an alien planet are far enough afield?
Andira’s presence wrapped around her, brightening the momentary darkness she had brought to their Sharing. Lhyn was there as well, newly sure of her welcome. Soon Ekatya arrived, her love a different flavor but no less supportive.
In the mental space their Sharing created, Salomen had always seen an ancient tree in a sunlit clearing, its health a visual indicator of their well-being. If any of them needed rebalancing, she viewed it as weakened branches in need of pruning.
She was not in the clearing this time. Their new understanding had apparently shifted her perception, for beneath her feet was the wet rock she and Lhyn had sheltered under yesterday. She was standing in the center of the waterfall, which churned past her in a thundering symphony of life.
Turning in place, she looked upslope and stared in awe. Her beloved waterfall was not tumbling over the edge of the slope as it did in the real world. Instead, it rushed from between two massive, twisted roots anchoring a tree so enormous that its branches reached to the stars. It was vibrantly healthy, gleaming with life, and swayed gently in a wind she could neither hear nor feel.
Except, she realized, she did hear it. Not the wind itself, but the rustling of leaves, reaching her ears despite the water’s roar and speaking a language she somehow understood.
Far enough, they said. Far enough.
Published by Heartsome Publishing
Staffordshire
United Kingdom
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Book cover design by Maria João Valente
Molwyn tree illustration by João T. Tavares/GOBIUS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to action persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
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Fletcher DeLancey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Copyright © 2020 Fletcher DeLancey
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About the Author
Fletcher DeLancey is an Oregon expatriate who left her beloved state when she met a Portuguese woman and had to choose between home and heart. She chose heart. Now she lives in the beautiful, sunny Algarve and is retraining her green thumb from wet Oregon gardening to survive-a-Mediterranean-summer gardening (and thinks about writing a new book: How I Learned to Love Succulents).
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She is best known for her science fiction/fantasy series Chronicles of Alsea, which has so far collected an Independent Publisher’s Award, a Golden Crown Literary Society Award, a Rainbow Award, and been shortlisted twice for the Lambda Literary Award. She has also been awarded the Alice B. Medal in recognition of career achievement.
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Fletcher believes that women need far more representation in science fiction and fantasy, and takes great pleasure in writing complex stories with women heading up the action. Her day is made every time another reader says, “I didn’t think I liked science fiction, but then I read yours.”
All about Alsea: alseaworld.com
All about Fletcher: fletcherdelancey.com
Also by Fletcher DeLancey
The Chronicles of Alsea series:
The Caphenon
Without A Front: T
he Producer's Challenge
Without A Front: The Warrior's Challenge
Catalyst
Vellmar the Blade
Outcaste
Resilience
Uprising
Alsea Rising: Gathering Storm
Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star
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Available worldwide in paperback and ebook.
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