Heart Journey

by Robin Owens

  Shunuk moved into the bright sunlight of late morning and sat. You are better.

  Yes. Again her throat hurt and she didn’t want to speak. The past is done. We must craft a future. Are there any towns you’d like to live in? Not Druida, not Gael City.

  I like the valley best.

  Raz . . . It hurt to even think of his name in her head, to see him in her mind’s eye. She started over. Raz must help restore that place for it to be a true home. She hesitated. What of Steep Springs?

  Shunuk’s gaze slid away, he shifted on his bottom. I don’t like Steep Springs.

  Amusement welled in her and she appreciated it. Shunuk probably wouldn’t be welcome in Steep Springs. More cluckers or rabbits missing, she supposed.

  Toono Town, he said.

  Del blinked. Another town, more in the hills than the mountains. A very arty community of brightly painted houses.

  Once she would have rejected the notion, shuddered at the thought of living among such folk. She nodded. “Deal.”

  She wended her way down the rest of the crater to the World Tree, passing folk and being passed, everyone at different places on their lives’ journeys. The older couple nodded as she stood aside in a shrine and watched them walk upward to the rim. She understood that the woman recognized the recent puffiness of tearful eyes, yet she said nothing, raised her hand in blessing.

  As Del took the path again, she explored the rhythm of herself, steps and heart and breath. Delving deeply as she hadn’t been able to during the last New Twinmoons ceremony or in the numbness and pain of grief.

  When she reached the World Tree and stepped into the center a mind-blinding epiphany shook her so she had to lean against the great trunk.

  She was pregnant.

  Thirty-six

  What had he done? He’d been a stup, a fool. An immature child.

  Raz paced his dressing room before the last act of the matinee performance, glad he had only this one bit to get through before he could go after Del.

  Who’d have thought that of the two of them, Helena D’Elecampane, tough frontier woman, and Cerasus Cherry, acclaimed actor, he’d be the more rigid, the less flexible?

  He wouldn’t have. He’d always considered Del the uncompromising one, the one who couldn’t, wouldn’t change. The one whom life had carved and scoured so she couldn’t stay in Druida.

  But he’d never had life smack him in the face like Del had.

  His parents hadn’t approved of his choice of work and that had been a bitter thorn in his side. The acting profession wasn’t an easy one and he’d had his share of rejections and foul-ups. But he hadn’t had any true tests of his character—life-and-death tests, life-changing tests.

  He’d failed abysmally and he didn’t like that, and as soon as this afternoon show was over, he’d figure out how to get her back, how he could be the man he’d thought he was.

  Pregnant.

  Del spread her hands over her flat belly, lowered herself to the ground.

  Pregnant after two eightdays of sex with her HeartMate.

  That didn’t happen on Celta. On Celta it took time for women to conceive.

  At least it had with everyone she’d ever known, everyone she’d ever heard of. Naturally there would be exceptions to that rule. Naturally. She gave a gasping laugh. Being pregnant was one of the most completely natural things that had ever happened to her. If the quality and heat of the loving between her and Raz had anything to do with conception, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was carrying triplets.

  She sank deep into that inner awareness, softly, softly, unable to do anything to jar this miracle, hinder her child, stop the wondrous event. Yes, there was just one baby.

  Del wasn’t Flaired enough or in the right way to sense her child’s sex. She thought she’d heard that some people knew instantly . . . instantly when they or their mate was pregnant and the sex.

  She couldn’t tell Raz. Her jaw clenched. He’d said he didn’t want her, or a family. The words had echoed in her ears, descended to taint her heart like a painful disease. He wanted a career. He wanted to be the individual star of his life right now.

  She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he changed his mind about marrying her, HeartBonding with her, because they were having a child together.

  Voices came toward her. Without thought she moved around the large trunk of the ash tree, away from the opening of the labyrinth. T’Ash had placed a no-time next to a small stone altar, and there was milk inside since he and his HeartMate had children, expected some children to walk—or run, or skip, or play—in the labyrinth.

  After drinking a tube of rich milk and setting it in the reconstructor, she nodded to the group who had unpacked a picnic under the tree, then she set off up the path. The baby made all her choices easier.

  For a moment she considered if she could stay in Druida, thought hard. No. The city affected her negatively physically, mentally, emotionally. That couldn’t be good for her child. She had too many contacts with the theater and noble circles. She wouldn’t hide his child from Raz, but she wouldn’t flaunt the babe, either. She didn’t want even a hint of a chance that this child would be unloved by his or her father.

  Raz had too many ties to Gael City, too.

  Not to mention the fact that Del figured everyone she knew would want them back together, would expect Raz to submit to his fate. There’d be no lack of meddling on the part of the Cherrys . . . or the Blackthorns.

  Right now, this child was hers, and only hers. She wanted a little time to become used to the idea. Time alone with her new life.

  Shunuk loped up, panting, grinning up at her, suspiciously happy. He knew how to open several no-times. “Greetyou, clucker-breath,” she said.

  He snapped his mouth shut and tried to look innocent. He didn’t do that nearly as good as the Cherry kittens. Del accepted the pang of memory, knew it would happen often, moved past it.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she said, “I’m going to have a kit.”

  He sniffed as he trotted beside her. I know.

  That had her slowing her step a little as dizziness rippled in her brain. “You do? How?”

  You smell different.

  She wanted to ask when but decided it didn’t matter. “All right. What do you think of living in Thomastown?”

  Shunuk angled his head so he could look at her. Not Toono?

  “No.” Not the quaint mountain artistic enclave, but a town near a research HealingHall that was on the far edge of Gael City. Del could live within easy glider distance, slightly longer stridebeast distance if worse came to worse.

  She was determined that worse would not come to worse. She wanted this child, this bond between herself and Raz. Stepping off of the path to sit on a bench, she examined her link with Raz. She couldn’t cut it off or shut it down, but she made it as narrow as possible. He would not learn of this child from that bond. “We’ll leave Druida City for Thomastown the day after tomorrow.” As soon as she had a full prenatal exam by Lark Holly. She’d set up the appointment when she got out of the crater, speak to Lark herself, and make her promise to tell no one but her HeartMate, who must promise not to speak to anyone.

  A while later they rounded a curve and stepped from sunlight into shadow, the path still cool from night. Shunuk yipped, looked at her from the corner of his eyes, at the trail circling up. Long path. We can take one of the animal ways. He waved his tail. Del hadn’t put the animal tracks on any of her maps but knew them all.

  “It is best for the kit and me to walk the meditation path. We won’t be back here for a while if we’re living south in Thomastown.” Not during her entire pregnancy. She’d be stuck in one place. The timing was good, at least. Warm autumn days to find a house and settle in, get everything ready for the winter. Then the winter and the spring for her pregnancy.

  New celtaroon nest in the middle southwest quadrant, want to see before I kill?

  “No.” She gestured. “You go on, be careful. They are deadly and poison
ous. I’m going to slow down, I’ll reach the rim in a little over two septhours.”

  With a flick of his tail, Shunuk ran through bushes and up the crater. Del settled into a slower pace. Time passed as easily as if she were walking beside her stridebeast toward the next section of topography to chart. She didn’t know how long she’d stay in Thomastown, but she’d make sure that the place would be good for her and her child for several years. For an instant she wondered how long Raz would ignore his little family, how long it would be before he would hear. This month? The next? Healers were supposed to be the souls of confidentiality, and Del already knew carrying this baby to term would be tough. If she phrased it that way . . . a woman rejected by her HeartMate, her feelings tender. She grimaced. Not her style.

  Not her former style.

  But she acknowledged and accepted that there would be new and wondrous changes in her life in the future and that she was looking forward to them.

  Raz reached mentally for Del. The bond between them was tinier than ever. It had been larger when they’d only been having dream sex.

  He winced, rubbed his hand over his chest. He hadn’t stopped hurting since she’d walked out of his life . . . since he’d sent her away . . . and the idea of dream sex, how that had become loving, hurt.

  Setting his jaw in concentration, closing his eyes, he tried tugging on the minuscule bond between them, caused his own heart to squeeze with pain. North.

  He didn’t have good navs in the glider for the north. Pulling his perscry from his pocket, he rubbed a thumb over it and said, “Guildhall Map Division.”

  “Guildhall Maps,” said a young woman in an irritated voice. She blew a bit of blond hair away from her eyes. It was not a good look for her, but Raz put extra appreciation into his smile.

  “I am sorry to bother you, but I would like to stop by and get glider nav flexistrips for the north.”

  The woman huffed a breath. “You and everyone else. The Great Labyrinth is very popular all of a sudden. I’ll be glad when D’Elecampane gets her maps of the place back to me.”

  “Ah. She is there?”

  “Yes.” The woman narrowed her eyes at Raz. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, shouldn’t have told anyone else, either.”

  “Who else was interested?”

  She shrugged plump shoulders. “T’Anise, the antiquarian.”

  “I’ve heard the name but don’t know the man.” Hadn’t Del complained of him? More than once? A tingle whisked down his spine . . . something . . . something.

  The clerk’s mouth drew down. “No loss.” Again she stared, this time pushing her hair away from her face. “Come on by, GrandSir Cherry. I’ll have the flexistrips.” Her image vanished from his stone.

  Raz sighed. It seemed as if everyone in Druida knew what a stup he’d been. He scooped up Rosemary and she grumbled sleepily as he attached her with a spell to his shoulder. “We’re going to find Del and Shunuk.”

  The kitten sat up and hissed. No. She will take Us away from Our stardom.

  He hadn’t seen Rosemary doing anything except being loved by the cast and crew, with the exception of Lily.

  She will take Us away from Our theater.

  “There are things more important than the theater.” Nearly heresy, but what he’d finally come to understand.

  What?

  He plucked her from his shoulder, looked into her topaz eyes. “Love. HeartMates. I love you.”

  But I love the theater.

  The kitten could stir up all his anxieties if he let her. She was a clever cat who was learning him well.

  “Del is a very generous woman. We will overcome our problems together.” That phrase sounded like a new, good mantra for when his doubts bit him. “Very generous,” he repeated. “She gave me you, didn’t she?”

  Rosemary sniffed and subsided.

  Even as Raz was closing the door to his dressing room, his scrybowl flashed white. He stared, went back, and answered, “Here.”

  “Captain Ruis Elder,” the man said, the water in the bowl burbling his words. His image was too wavery to see more than a vague gray profile of the man. Raz was still impressed. He’d thought the technology Nuada’s Sword was incompatible with scrybowls.

  “How can I help you?” Raz projected his voice in case Captain Elder was having a problem hearing him.

  “I’m a little concerned,” Captain Elder boomed. “Ship has notified me of a series of requests he’s had over the last year for maps from Lugh’s Spear, plans of the Ship itself, and any information on the Tabacin Diary. This all came up when a lord purchased one of the new sets of ship diagrams and models of Lugh’s Spear.”

  A name was slithering through Raz’s mind, but he needed to hear it.

  “GrandLord Pym T’Anise,” Elder said.

  Everything fell into place. T’Anise, a man who owned an antique shop. A man who was interested in the past. Perhaps obsessed with the past? Raz scraped his memory to recall when Del first told him of the GrandLord. After Del had started seeing him. Del, a great cartographer. Raz, a Cherry who might have evidence—a diary—showing where Lugh’s Spear had landed.

  “Thank you. I must go.”

  “The man asked about Del’s maps of the east, too.”

  Raz could only nod. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I can call Straif T’Blackthorn.”

  “Blackthorn’s out of town. Del’s my HeartMate.” Raz didn’t wait, he raced for Cherry, calculating how fast he could get to the Great Labyrinth. About two septhours.

  He fumbled for his perscry, called Winterberry. The guard was in Gael City with Straif T’Blackthorn.

  No one Raz knew could teleport to the center of the labyrinth, even knew enough about it to try.

  He flung the bond between himself and Del wide, but it was still narrow on her side. He tried her perscry but there was no answer, not even to cache a message. Probably in the great bowl of the labyrinth.

  He heard nothing but the thunder of blood-ridden fear in his head.

  As she reached the top of the bright, sunny rim of the crater, and was a pace or two from the end, Del’s own words from the past, from her former life echoed in her head. Words she’d said to the shop owner in Steep Springs. If I want to get pregnant, I will. She laughed as she stepped from the labyrinth.

  She turned and looked back at the bowl, bowed formally in thanks, kept the image as a memory. Halfway down one side she saw a thrashing of dust and figured Shunuk was enjoying himself cleaning out the celtaroon nest. Maybe she should try once more to get him a vixen from Druida who would like living in a tiny settlement with Shunuk. Good and symmetrical.

  Del pivoted to walk from the path and saw a thick-bodied, middle-aged man heavily descend the few steps of the Elder’s new pavilion. He progressed carefully over to her, a smile plumping his cheeks into round pouches. She blinked as she recognized T’Anise.

  When he reached her, he bowed. “Finally we meet merrily, GrandLady D’Elecampane.”

  She suppressed a sigh, raised a hand. “I’m not staying in Druida. I’ve left the city and won’t be returning.”

  He bent a commiserating look on her, clicked his tongue, shook his head. “I’ve heard.”

  Del gritted her teeth. She supposed all the damn noble circles had gossiped about her and Raz.

  “But there was another, more sensitive matter about which I wish to speak personally with you.” T’Anise gave her a toothy smile. “I would like you to consult with me, GrandLady. It has been centuries since the boundaries of my estate have been surveyed.” A tiny cough came from his throat and he reddened and looked aside. “There might be a dispute . . .”

  Wasn’t that always the way? People. “I’m sorry,” Del said, “I’m not avail—”

  He named an extortionate fee. “The estate is a little south of Gael City, not too far off the glider paths or airship route. It’s not a big estate, but it’s a jewel and I love it.”

  Del paused to consider. Work, close to her home, s
omething to do other than preparing for the baby. She’d be practicing her craft. Taking a job like this might lead to others in the area. “I’m listening.”

  Thirty-seven

  Over the next septhour and a half, Raz pushed the glider to its limits. After a glance at the navmap he cut some time by going over ground instead of following wide curves. It was rocky and they bounced but kept up good speed. He’d turned on the emergency flashers and sound pulse and zoomed from the city. The few gliders on the road had pulled aside for him.

  The image of the dead thief kept flashing in stark black, bright white into his mind.

  The blows from the big man when they’d fought ached.

  Del was tough and strong.

  She’d fight.

  To the death.

  As she and T’Anise discussed the location of his estate and the details of the job, he offered his arm and Del put her fingers on it, then disliked the proper action as strange energy pulsed under her fingertips. When a large boulder rose ahead of them, she went around it to the left as T’Anise went right, continued down the path to the meadow where her stridebeast was.

  “My lady, where do you go?” T’Anise asked.

  “To my stridebeast.”

  “My man can take care of that. Come join me in my glider.” With a wave, he gestured to a large man dressed in gray on gray livery.

  Del hesitated, but as T’Anise’s man came closer, there was something about him that she didn’t like. The guard spoke with T’Anise and turned in her direction.

  “We can talk at the inn,” Del said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “I have maps in my glider,” T’Anise said. He moved toward where it sat, large and luxurious and gleaming gray, the only glider in the small bulb of cleared ground.

  Shrugging, Del said, “I’ll be with you in a bit.”

  The large man strode to her in a few paces, took her elbow in a tight grip.