by Robin Owens
Del picked Raz up after his evening performance, driving her new glider carefully, taking them to the midnight ritual at GreatCircle Temple.
T’Ivy and D’Ivy, the officiants, were pompous and arrogant, looked down on her until Raz charmed them. It didn’t take him long to beguile everyone in the room, certainly by the time Vinni T’Vine, the young prophet, helped the Ivys arrange the circle. Del was hand in hand between Raz and Signet D’Marigold. As the woman’s catalyst energy zoomed through her, Del smiled coolly at young Vinni. Did he think she needed changing? She had changed so much.
The ritual itself emphasized self-knowledge and modification as the Ivys spoke of circling into the spiral of the self. Del strove not to shift from foot to foot. She knew herself, knew she’d changed, accepted it.
Then the work of the FirstFamilies began, with raising and sending energy to the round temples of Druida City, particularly the less well attended, to keep them clean and strong and sacred. After that, they checked on the state of the city, and when Del provided a clear and detailed visualization of the new streets of old Downwind there was a murmur of approval.
Then, to her pleased surprise, the circle focused on the Great Labyrinth north of the city. Other than the path in the crater and up the bowl to the rim itself, it was a tangle. As the energy cycled around, spots on the map in Del’s head brightened, as if each Family sought out their own sacred space with their own offering and sent Flair there.
By the time the ritual ended, she was dizzy and leaning into Raz. He was thrilled and energized at being a part of the FirstFamilies’ ceremony. She fought a headache and the edge of nausea. No, she wouldn’t do this again.
She stayed silent by Raz’s side as he complimented everyone and said good-bye, glad for the breath of fresh, cool air when they finally left the temple for her glider. Raz seated her in the passenger side, then took the driving bar.
“I’d like to go to your place tonight,” Del rasped. She felt his glance but didn’t elaborate.
“Sure.”
The drive was quiet. Now they were alone, Del sensed Raz was letting himself feel the wonder of the great ceremony they’d taken part of, the surge of immense Flair and psi that the FirstFamilies lords and ladies could command. The awe in shaping their own world, actually making a difference.
Del knew Raz considered his career as one of art and entertainment, of exploring personalities and conflicts. He thought of his profession as a calling, satisfying to himself and his coworkers and his audiences. But to actually affect and change the world . . . that awed him.
It would awe her, too, once she got past the sickness and headache. The circle was too strong for her, the links too intimate for her comfort, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. But she sensed Raz had sipped a euphoric and addicting drink, another difference between them. She shivered. The early morning air was cool, not to be warm again as the year wound down. Soon the autumnal equinox would be upon them, and in two months, the new year.
Would she spend it with Raz?
The last time she was this nervous was when she took her master’s examination. She trembled, never wanting anything as much as she wanted Raz.
Raz parked the glider on the street in front of his apartment building. The street was wide enough for PublicCarriers to pass, and there were no other vehicles. The glider glowed with a new alarm.
The intensity of the moment condensed around her, the faint scent of herbal cleanser wafting from the building’s interior, the rush of chill air as Raz opened the door for her, his smile—that smile she thought he saved only for her; a loving smile?—the slide of his smooth hand across her calloused fingers.
Her heart thumped hard. She tried to keep all emotions through their bond steady and easy. It was an effort. She couldn’t smile back at him.
“Del?” he asked.
“When we get inside,” she said, squeezing his hand.
But his body went tense and emotions surged within him and through their link, distress.
Damn.
They entered the building silently, though when she stepped in, a humming energy caressed her skin. Others in the place had done New Twinmoons rituals. How could he live with so many people around him?
But he liked it.
She found she was shaking her head when he opened the door to his apartment and bowed her in.
Inhaling deeply, she glanced around. Over the weeks, he’d added objects to the wall shelves, and they all looked good, but she sensed the room yet seemed bare to him.
She sensed too much from him.
One thing she didn’t see was the HeartGift she’d made. Wasn’t it here the last time she’d looked?
No, it was in his dressing room at the theater, on a high shelf, layered with shields.
Damn. She could have used it to make her point.
“Lights on,” Raz said and closed the door behind him. He sniffed and she realized that scents from others’ rituals had drifted into his space and he liked that. The herbs seemed to coat her skin, another irritant.
“Del?”
She wasn’t sure when he’d dropped her hand, or had she dropped his? Didn’t matter. She turned to him and held out her hands. He took them, lifted each to his lips, and kissed them, and her throat closed so she had to pant a couple of times before she could force words out.
“I claim you as my HeartMate,” she said.
“No!” He stepped back. She lost the warmth of his touch. His face drained of blood.
She fumbled for the connection to the HeartGift in his dressing room, grunted with the effort of translocating it here, had to jump to catch it as the slick glass slipped through her sweaty palms. Damn!
“You accepted this HeartGift from me,” she croaked, flooded with panic, his and her own. She wet her lips and struggled on. “You are legally my HeartMate. HeartBond with me.”
“No.” He shook his head.
Everything inside her broke. Her knees weakened. Thankfully her vision narrowed until she could only see the top of his shirt, rising and falling rapidly with his breaths. A great rushing filled her ears, blocking further denials from him.
She looked down at the landscape globe, thought she saw the estate in Verde Valley, shook her head and had to hunker into her balance. She would not peel the shields off the HeartGift and accept sexual madness. That’s not what he wanted, and she wanted all of him. She was bleeding from a thousand cuts, all inside. She hurt, hurt, hurt. But she would not give up. “You’re my HeartMate. I know it and you know it.”
Thirty-four
Raz stared at Del.
“You have accepted my HeartGift.” She held up the landscape globe and heat flashed through him. Knowledge he’d hidden from himself, like everything else, sexual heat as he looked at it, knew that if he removed the shield he’d sensed, they would have sex where they stood.
“You chose it before we left for Gael City. Legally I can claim you as my HeartMate.” The skin on her face was taut, her bones showing all angles. Determination.
Her lips compressed. He sensed she didn’t want this confrontation any more than he did, but that issues had been raised that must be dealt with. No running away for either one of them. Her eyes blazed power and Flair, as if she, too, had had a small shield over her, one he hadn’t noticed. She was magnificent, and if he let her, she could overwhelm him. He couldn’t allow that.
“Legally I can claim you as my HeartMate and no one could deny me.” She smiled thinly. “But morally that isn’t right.” She sucked in a breath. “I am an honorable woman, and you are an honorable man. Do you want me as your HeartMate?”
He wasn’t ready for this.
He felt trapped. Completely. If he didn’t do something about it, he’d be trapped forever.
Traveling with Del as a wandering player. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t give up the full houses of applause. He couldn’t throw away his career to walk lonely trails with her.
“No,” he said for a third time. Wasn’t ther
e a rule about a three-time refusal? He didn’t know. He did know the rules about HeartGifts. He’d taken the one she’d made for her HeartMate—chosen hers of his own free will. Kept it close.
All the weight was with her, as usual. The law, riches, power. All the things he’d told himself didn’t bother him rushed forward into his mind and fear spewed words out of his mouth. “I don’t want a HeartMate or a wife or a family,” he said.
She dropped the landscape globe. He lunged and caught it.
HeartGift. Given to him. Desperation swelled through him. He didn’t want this, didn’t want the words between them, though he wanted the sex and the woman and the loving.
He couldn’t have his own identity and his career and her, everything. Though he wanted to keep the HeartGift closed in his fingers, he pried them open, threw it back at her.
She didn’t reach out to catch it and it fell.
Rosemary shot from the shadows, pounced, and rolled with the globe onto the carpet before the glass hit the wooden floor. The kitten squealed as the globe escaped to spin behind the couch.
Del nodded once—as she had in that argument they’d had in Gael City. Her face was completely impassive, a hard mask. Something was tearing inside him and he didn’t have the wits to stop it. Couldn’t fight the sensation of being trapped and pry his mouth open and say the right words. He didn’t even know what kind of words he could say.
She was going to walk away. All his insides chilled, clenching into a small frozen knot, but heat burned on his skin from anger that she would wreck what was between them, force him to acknowledge what they were to each other before he was ready. He was embarrassed that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t smooth this over with words.
The contrast of fire and ice hurt. He didn’t know what else to do or say that would make his life right, that would blend their lives together.
Emotions roiled wildly between them, the pain so intense he slammed the link between them shut, only to feel emptiness in his body and mind and heart.
He shuddered, saw that she trembled, too.
“Take care.” Her voice was low. She pivoted, her back straight, head high, shoulders tense and set, and left.
He didn’t call her back.
She didn’t know how she got out of the building, but stood in the night. Why had she believed even for an instant that he was happy to be her HeartMate?
She couldn’t teleport, her brain was too scrambled. When the glider caught her eye, she turned her back, began to shamble away. But she couldn’t walk the streets of Druida.
Couldn’t.
Too many people around since it might be the last New Twinmoons ritual that could be done outside in parks.
Her eyes burned, too dry, though she thought somewhere inside there was a tender soul racked with sobs. Stupid idea.
She could barely shuffle her feet.
Shunuk joined her. His tail slapped into her sweaty palm. Follow me to the public teleportation pad.
Right.
It was at a dead end in a narrow crack between buildings. A service teleportation pad for middle-class workers.
Del reached down and lifted Shunuk to her, buried her face in his thick pelt, he visualized the house, and they teleported there.
She couldn’t stay here, either. The rooms would be haunted by her HeartMate.
Three more scrys had piled up in her cache from the persistent GrandLord T’Anise. The man was determined to get Del in his clutches, reform her into a pattern of a responsible Druidan Noblewoman.
Never.
Del packed quickly, headed out of the horrible town and north within a septhour by stridebeast. Her eyes had cleared but her gut still churned. She wouldn’t be forcing down food anytime soon. All of her ached or occasionally went numb from sheer devastating overload, and she welcomed that.
Where are we going? Shunuk asked after a silent septhour on the dark road, far from dawn. North to the fishing villages? All the way to the Great Washington Boghole?
The last sarcastic bite to his tone brought her dull mind back to the present. Good thing she was riding and had a Fam, though the gliderway was well tended. No more damn gliders for her. Good.
“To the Great Labyrinth,” she croaked. Maybe she should stick with telepathy, her throat hurt, and her voice was bad.
Why? Shunuk asked.
Why not? We’ll stay at an inn there.
It was a few septhours ride for a summer’s night. With each step of her stridebeast, Del seemed to sink into herself, find herself. Her new self.
She’d have to return to Druida, if only to settle her house and accounts so she could be gone a long time away, finish the holo painting with Doolee.
Straif had been right. Good to have a painting of them at this time in their lives, when they’d found each other, before Doolee became more Blackthorn than Elecampane and Del became . . . whatever. Not fossilized and a caricature of a frontier woman. She’d escaped that fate.
Occasionally a glider passed her. Every time she flinched. Not good.
Shunuk coursed along the trail or rode on his pad. He had reverted more to the wild, feral fox on the trail than the sleek, city-dwelling Fam. He didn’t intrude on her thoughts.
At dawn, Del rode to the rim of the huge crater of the Great Labyrinth before going on to the inn. Good thing about stridebeasts, they could take small trails between uneven brush and ground instead of needing wide packed earth. And they could whiffle with concern for their rider, turn their heads back and stare at her with big, loving eyes.
Del slid down from the stridebeast’s back, set her face in her mount’s side. He wasn’t as intelligent as a horse, but not as delicate, either. Stridebeasts might never become Fams as she’d heard horses might become, but Del was glad to have the simple warmth and limited caring of the beast in her life.
Shunuk yipped. What are we doing here? The inn is around the rim another kilometer or so.
Swallowing and clearing her throat, Del took a softleaf from her pocket and rubbed her face. No tears. She thought tears would be a relief, but all the wild hurt was dammed up inside her, couldn’t get out. Not safe to let it out on the trail.
Shunuk tilted his head. You hurt, should let water come from your eyes.
“Sometime soon.” She inhaled the warm and city-odor-free air, let it settle in her lungs like a blessing and release, set her mind in the now.
Another good, deep breath and she focused only on the huge bowl beneath her. It was three kilometers in diameter, with a wide floor and walls angling up six hundred and fifty meters. A quarter of the rim had collapsed. Inside the bowl was lush and mostly trained vegetation. The path of the labyrinth was clear and well defined, as many feet had made it over the centuries.
Between the labyrinth loops were shrines that more and more noble Families were establishing. The FirstFamilies had started the tradition centuries ago. T’Ash had the huge World Tree in the center, T’Vine an arbor and bottles of wine, T’Hawthorn hedgerows around a small glade, sweet smelling in the spring. Mapping this place would be easy, the wending path was already ingrained in her mind. Noting the Family spaces would be interesting—the benches and altars, the mosaics and fountains . . .
Making a model would be challenging.
When her throat tightened she put that thought aside, too. Let someone else make a model. She’d map the place, leave papyrus and three-dimensional holo at the inn, take one to the Guildhall in Druida City, maybe give one to Mitchella D’Blackthorn for the FirstFamilies, then leave Druida for a long time.
Even before all the talk of the lost starship of Lugh’s Spear, Del had been interested in crossing the Bluegrass Plains, checking out Fish Story Lake again, refining those maps. Now she had the Flair for it, she could make topographical holos.
Shunuk sniffed. Walking back and forth on that path is boring.
No doubt the meditation of the Great Labyrinth would work on her and she’d be ready for the next stage of her life. “For you, maybe. But you don’t
have to walk the path. I’d like you to do something different. You know that Families are making spaces to show off their characteristics and their work, shrines for whoever comes or if no one comes, for the Lady and Lord.” She slanted a look at her Fam. “There’s food sometimes. I don’t think anyone knows exactly how many shrines there are or which Families are represented. The Great Labyrinth just came back in fashion a few years ago. So you should help me double-check.”
He hummed in his throat, slid a glance toward her. “Have the Cherrys made a spot?”
Yeah, there came the stabbing pain. “Maybe.”
Shunuk turned his pointy nose toward a dark green shadow halfway up the crater. I will find it. He looked back at her with glittering eyes. We should not have left Druida City.
The very thought of staying there, living there, made her gorge rise. She widened her stance, gritted her teeth, stared down at her Fam and said more words that might rip another loved one from her life. “I can’t live in Druida City, any city. There are too many people, too many shields, too many expectations. I can do many things, but that’s not one of them. I have spent too much time in the wild. I would be like a caged bird, dull and unhappy. I would fade away, not be the person I am.” She lifted her chin. “At least I know this weakness. If you want to live in the city, go. I’m sure our Fam bonds will thin and then vanish.” Pain engulfed her; she hung on to her stridebeast’s mane.
Shunuk fell to his belly, put his paws over his muzzle. I am sorry I made you hurt more. I would have liked the city, but that is not for us. I will stay with you.
She couldn’t speak aloud. Thank you. She stroked her stridebeast’s soft lips; for a moment she’d thought she’d be ripped into more pieces. Too many pieces lost and she wouldn’t ever get herself back.
Lifting his paws from over his nose Shunuk stood and shook himself, glanced at her, and said, HeartMates are forever. Then he stared at the Great Labyrinth and trotted along the trail around the rim.
HeartMates were forever, but she would never ask Raz to bond with her again.
