Moments passed as he completed his task. Zanth hummed mentally in satisfaction at Danith's Healing and fussing. By the time T'Ash returned to them, Zanth sat upright with a smug cat-smile on his round face, and one folded ear now straight up.
T'Ash stared. "You Healed his ear."
"Yes."
"But only one."
"The other wasn't hurt."
"He looks odd."
Zanth glared at him. Food for feral cats. They wait in shadows.
T'Ash closed his eyes and heaved the half-hog from his Residence no-time to small moving shapes near the garden door.
Danith looked at Zanth, proudly sitting with one ear straight up. He swished his tail. Life is good.
She sighed. "Sooner or later the other will be hurt again. Maybe then I can fix it." Her gaze went beyond T'Ash to the still forms on the ground.
"Dead," he said. "I can teleport them to the Downwind DeathGrove." And one by one he teleported them away.
Her lips pressed together.
He crouched down. When he looked in her eyes, they appeared large with tears. Her expression was of a woman totally lost. His heart clenched.
Then she fell into his arms.
Darkness filled his vision. His knees gave out.
Passage took Danith.
He swore. Passage. Now. Her Flair was breaking completely free at last. She'd suffer both her second and third Passages together, and over a matter of hours, not days.
He grabbed her. Her skin felt chill against his palms, a very bad sign. She moaned. The convulsions began.
They were alone in a breached GrandHouse estate. The strength of the Passage would be deadly. Would they survive? Would only one survive? Terror ripped through him.
Blackness swept him away.
A million fingers of intense emotion plucked at her soul, each one laced with the powerful Flair swirling through her, tinting memories with different aspects she'd never felt before.
She hadn't really remembered the sound of the speeding airship that had plunged into her little home, killing her parents and miraculously sparing her. She hadn't remembered the blistering heat or the shattering of brick. She'd suppressed it. She remembered now. In every detail.
She hadn't really remembered the dread of the towering, formidable strangers dressed in eye-hurting bright robes muttering things she didn't understand—her first contact with the Maidens of Saille. She remembered now.
She had forgotten the rough, urgent hands and body of a sweaty Timkin as he took her maidenhead. She had coated the memory with the love she'd felt. She experienced each harsh touch now.
All her memories battered at her, flashing through her too quickly for her to grab and master, as the Flair roared through her like an enormous fire. No wonder T'Ash feared fire.
The thought was swept away, all thought seared by the blaze within. She could not protect herself from the emotions, she could not grasp control of the Flair. She could only exist and suffer, and only for a short while.
A shield came. Strong and dark. Buffering her from the emotions. Holding her. T'Ash.
Some awful pain smashed both of them—when she was told she had no Flair. T'Ash grunted, her Flair resurged in flames around them, carried them away.
But they survived, together.
She closed her eyes. She felt safe.
Then she felt safe and separate from T'Ash.
She shivered with cold and emptiness.
She became capable of thought, the battering emotions limited enough to sort out into surprise and fear. She found herself walking down dim stone corridors of an ancient Residence, and knew it had been the ancestral Residence of Ash GreatHouse. Light streamed from a square doorway on the left.
An image formed of three boys, a young woman and man, and an older man. The oldest boy already held himself with a noble bearing, the second child displayed a reckless, winning grin. The third son—T'Ash, she realized—stood tall under the hand of the young man, his mother watched with tender, loving eyes, the older man with stern acceptance. "I'm proud of you, Rand," his father said.
Danith's heart trembled at the loving scene. She reached out a flat palm and felt the warmth of emotion, stepped nearer. Something restrained her. T'Ash. She couldn't see him, but could feel him around her.
"He said he was proud of me," T'Ash whispered. "I was always in trouble, but he said he was proud of me. Once."
Danith managed a smile and continued walking down the hallway, gathering her strength and energy for the storm she sensed still raged outside these walls. The walls T'Ash had built to contain and master his great Flair, the memories he had ordered and controlled. A lesson for her to do the same, with his help.
Another door beckoned, the jamb around the cracked-open wooden door was splintered. She walked to it, peered in.
Winter. A small, tattered, dirty boy running with stolen items he could sell for food—dodging a sleek looking man who dealt in boy-flesh—finding his hole and hiding. He shivered himself to sleep next to a cat nearly as large as he.
Danith touched the door, whether to open it or close it, she wasn't sure. It whipped from her hands and slammed.
She walked to a door further down the hallway, this door with copper inlay and a fancy knob. It was locked and did not turn under her hand.
A pointed arch. Green contours of the Ash grassyard hosted a party.
"My Nameday. My Flair began to show. Everyone was pleased," T'Ash's voice reverberated in her mind, yet his tone held a hollow note.
She hesitated by the arch, then continued. The corridor became smooth, like the armourcrete over stone of his new Residence. There were mere indications of doors, thin square outlines against the walls. She touched one.
"You don't need to go in there."
His words hurt, then pain gathered like a stone and sank into her. He would not let her in to his memories. He'd mastered his Flair and constructed this wonderful sanctuary for her during her Passage, but he would not share any further personal experiences with her.
She hurried down the hall to the door leading outside. She stopped.
He instructed her. "Build a place—brick, stone, armourcrete—materials don't matter, but build a place that will shield you. Where you can stand and take the Flair and forge it to your needs."
She knew it wouldn't work like that for her. She considered his words. Perhaps she had the strength and knowledge to form a thin layer of glisten hardglass between herself and the emotions, a tube encasing her. With an opening for her to gather Flair and shape it into workable streams.
She closed her eyes and began fabricating the capsule around her. T'Ash helped—not doing it himself, or giving her energy—but showing her images of how she could create it.
When she thought she was safe, she sucked in a deep breath and opened the door.
And fell, again, into a void whistling with emotions. The same! She shrieked until her voice was raw; fear whipped through her again and again until she understood that she was more afraid of what had happened and what could happen, than what was actually happening. The thin tube around her held.
And the revelations began.
Her homelife as a child. A moody, temperamental father who struck and bruised her mother, raised a hand to Danith now and again. If she looked, she could see what her life would have been if the airship hadn't killed her parents. She shuddered. She didn't want to see. Hard to believe the airship had been a blessing. She grabbed a handful of burning Flair and splintered the vision.
The love that Maiden Brigit of the Saille Home for Orphans had for Danith. Not a wholesome love, not a love of a mother/sister for a daughter/sister. Danith whimpered, then caught herself. Maiden Brigit had restrained that wrong sort of love, had controlled her sexual impulses, had never hurt any of the children. Danith grabbed a fiery spear of Flair and shattered the image.
Timkin's lust. His affection and words of love that were merely a joint past and a young man's raging hormones. He'd said the words and
Danith had believed them, but they had been empty.
Her own love for Timkin. More than his, but not true love, not HeartMate love.
Tears streamed down her face as she used Flair to banish the knowledge.
Mitchella. Love for a sister. Love returned. Respect. Affection.
Claif. Affection, but no love, no passion, no HeartMate. His love for her a matter of desire and possessiveness and a knowledge that she would always make life easy for him, that she pleased and was loved by his Family.
It hurt. Why did confirmation of what she knew to be true hurt?
She despised herself. She'd used the Clovers, feeling that being a part of the big Family would mean she'd never lack for love.
She let Claif use her affection for him to avoid the effort of finding his true HeartMate, whom she sensed beyond the reaches of her Flair. Finding and winning HeartMates was rarely simple, but full of pitfalls and agonizing emotion.
Love lost. Love found. The losing shredding pieces of the soul, carving deep hollows and filling it to the brim with love. Claif wanted it easy.
As she had.
She'd used the Clovers. A crack appeared in her hard-glass tube. She watched in horror as it quickly arrowed tiny fissures.
No! She accepted the disgust at her failure, but she grabbed at good emotions, too. She had used the Clovers, but she had given of herself, too.
A branching crack disappeared.
She had spent time with the Family, helping them in errands, with tasks. She had added her energy to Rituals to Heal MotherDam. She had listened and counseled Trif, reaching her as a friend and an outsider when the rest of the Family had despaired.
It was not a matter of use, of debits and credits. It was a matter of Family and the love streaming between each member.
Her tube mended seamlessly.
Once again she rolled through sweeping waves of emotions, battered in her tube, but surviving. She endured the landslide of memories, the whirlwind of alternative futures.
With her, surrounding her, was T'Ash. He held distant from her, how she didn't know, but she knew it was so that she would control her Passage. That she would master her Flair.
She sensed he would hurl himself into the turmoil at any moment if the Flair took her, because he'd convinced himself that she was integral to the continuation of his line.
She pushed the thought away. She, and she alone, could control her Flair. And before the Passage was done, she would have it harnessed. Harnessed like a powerful, senseless animal. An animal she could Heal. Her Flair, Healing animals. A unique, powerful, welcomed Flair.
Yes. Pride. Triumph. She used those emotions and those tools to garner more and more Flair, to shape it. To subdue it. To create her future.
One overwhelming maelstrom, earthquake, tornado, conflagration rolled over her, pierced her tube and her heart.
She loved T'Ash. With HeartMate love. Love that was fated never to belong to any other, past, present, or future.
And she feared that love.
Too soon. Too soon. Once again too soon for her to grasp and understand and control as she had finally controlled her Flair.
What would happen to her if she fell into T'Ash's arms? Would she be overwhelmed, Danith D'Ash before she ever learned who Danith D'Mallow could ever be?
Now she celebrated many rituals by herself, in a special place outside the city she'd found and treasured. A wild, natural place. Her heart swelled with love as she thought of the peace it gave her.
As D'Ash, she would be chivied into the GreatCircle Temple of the FirstFamilies, part of the heavy and burdensome future-shaping rituals, integral to the potent spells, sharing in the obligations and responsibilities of building and civilizing Celta. Personal wishes and goals would have to be subjugated to the wishes and goals of the many.
She would always be in the public eye, always held to the rules of conduct of a GreatLady, always expected to be a flawless example of nobility. A life of common, private, casualness would be exchanged for a life of noble formality and manners.
The Clovers would forever be lost to her. A large, laughing Family that would always provide Danith with affection and love and support would be gone.
She loved T'Ash, but could she live the life his wealth and power and Flair and position demanded? Would it smother her?
She had ignored the outside memory-emotions tossing her tube around as she'd considered her future, and now she found herself standing within a deep forest. The trail behind her had vanished.
Several paths opened before her, and she froze. One road glowed with shining brightness. Death? Love? Flair?
One looked rocky and cold and barren.
Smoke roiled and boiled over another, giving glimpses of eerie landscapes.
One appeared solid and well-marked, passing through uninteresting scenery.
She plunged down the bright path. She turned a corner and heard T'Ash cry out.
Everything stilled.
She saw T'Ash. The man, the GreatLord, she loved. And she could look deep inside him.
Chapter Sixteen
« ^ »
She stared at T'Ash. At first his powerful Flair nearly blinded her, then she learned to look beyond that. She observed the loneliness of the man, to see a kernel of some lingering darkness in his heart. Could she separate the man from the GreatLord? Would that help her decide?
The young Rand had been third and last of the Ash sons. His Father had "once" said he was proud of him. His Mother had chosen to perish with the rest of her Family rather than to stay and care for Rand.
Rand, who still grieved, who hid within GreatLord T'Ash, not allowing anyone close, any other loved one to abandon him.
Her love for him grew.
But did he love her? He used the word HeartMate, but never mentioned love. Could he love her?
She looked deep into him and knew the dark seed could grow once more, consuming him as the fire had devoured his Family.
She knew she could demolish that black kernel with her love for him, if she dared to love him with all her heart, if she gave herself to him body, mind, and soul. If she joined with him in a HeartBond.
And if she failed him, it would destroy her.
She could fight for him and win. She only had to prod him until he opened his whole self to her. When she knew all of him, and only then, she would HeartBond with him, and then love would come to them both. She would fight to know all his demons.
But not now, Lady and Lord, not now. She could not engage in that battle after so many recently fought. Not when it was so extremely important. Not when failing would destroy them both.
She'd run away—just for the moment, just until she found the courage to run back. Just until she knew she could win.
And for the first time she felt him draw near, as if he knew she'd confronted her worst demons, harnessed her Flair, and survived.
She let the tube dissolve.
Chaos no longer swirled around her, instead, bands of rainbow light pulsed in prismatic order, with silver and gold and iridescent glisten sparkles looking like stars and a swath of glittering gold veiling. T'Ash might have reconstructed his ancient Residence during his Passages as a bulwark against the chaos, but that was not her style. Instead, she had this pulsating rainbow, and each star—like each door of T'Ash's Residence—would mark a memory. And the gold was her Flair, to be drawn upon and used to Heal.
She smiled.
With deep delight she tapped the pulsing thing to Heal her cut cheek and other scrapes, and to mend T'Ash's blistered skin and knife slashes. She dissolved his bandages. Then she gathered and showered them both with glittering energy.
Slowly she withdrew from the rainbow. Slowly she began to feel sensations of the physical world around her. She felt the heaviness of her body, the superficial coolness of her skin in the night air. She heard the rustlings and peepings of night creatures. She smelled the fragrance of crushed grass, and something more primal, a tang of blood.
Da
nith shuddered. She opened her eyes to see T'Ash lying on his side in front of her. The twinmoonslight brushed the angles of his face with silver. His eyes appeared stark, until she met his gaze, then she saw a flame of passion.
She loved him. She wanted him.
Between them tension built, the last vestiges of all the emotions of Passage melted into a craving for him, a desire she had no will to deny.
She needed his arms around her. She hungered for the taste of him on her tongue. Most of all, she wanted his sex stroking within her, giving her the ultimate climax she would only find with him.
T'Ash looked into Danith's eyes, deep pools of green, melting with desire that threatened to whirl him away into a passion he'd never experienced. Within him lust mixed with tenderness, possessiveness, protectiveness—an exciting, new sensation.
She wanted him. She wanted him. Now.
He remembered how it had been between them during his own recent Passage. His body hardened beyond refusal. His breath rasped. His heart raced.
His heart. He should think of his heart, of his HeartMate. He should resist the temptation. Her life had changed too fast, and once he claimed her body, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to let her go, let her have even the space of a septhour from him. And if he took her, his heart would be affected as much as his body. If she later rejected him, it would rip him to pieces smaller than Zanth with a lizard. And he had to hide his flaws.
Me guard. Zanth trotted away, humming cat-satisfied sounds, one ear and his tail sticking up.
Danith pulled T'Ash's head down to her own. When her lips touched his and her taste blossomed on his tongue, he was lost.
Blood heated and streaked through his veins like molten fire, and the fire felt good. He embraced it, liked how it caused his body to tremble.
She was soft beneath him, her hands urgent on his back, kneading his flexing muscles.
He groaned and rolled aside tearing his lips from her eager ones, capturing her wrists.
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