Folia’s expression turned cruel; it had never had a long way to go to do that. “Finally you demonstrate a shred of reason. The twins are selfish, uncontrolled idiots and now they’re in jail.” She made a chopping gesture with her hand, the heavy lids of her eyes lowered until only an evil glint showed. “Vi and Zus were easily directed by me and my . . . assistant, we who are the heads of the Traditionalist Stance.” Her mouth puckered sourly.
Lori said, “Well, you’re not an uncontrolled idiot, just bad and selfish and prideful.”
Folia slashed with a hand that Lori dodged. She took a couple of steps backing up, trying to stay calm enough to visualize the stable area in the tricky light of sunset.
Teeth gleaming in a nasty, biting smile, Folia prowled forward.
“What do you want?” Again words spilled from Lori, more to delay, she thought. Of course the woman wanted to be D’Yew, the power and status of that in the outer world.
“To be D’Yew, you stupid, stupid child. Now there is no way I can discreetly obtain the title and take over the estate; too many outsiders know of our situation.” Her teeth actually snapped; Lori heard them. Now Folia’s face became ugly with loathing. She seemed to grow taller, wider. “Did you think I didn’t know about those pitiful little trips of yours in Druida City?” She smiled, and it was worse than any of her other expressions. Lori got the distinct feeling that the woman liked her fear, was punishing her for the disruption of Folia’s plans. “I kept track of you through a spell on those disgusting clothes you used. So much easier for a nameless young woman to die in Druida City than Loridana Yew, here. But you escaped the gangs and even Vi’s and Zus’s pitiful attempts like the glider.” Folia pouted. “I think, though, you could yet have a fatal accident.”
Lori saw it in Folia’s eyes, felt it. She’d been positioned beside a heavy cast-iron pan on the top of the pantry shelf, ready to fall and shatter her head, with a little help from Folia.
This time Lori didn’t hesitate; she yanked power from the depths of the building’s foundation, coated herself with personal armor. Better. Getting better at this.
The pot flew and fell. She felt a slight impact and it bounced off her shoulder, heading straight toward Folia, who was yanked back by a thick arm around her throat—Draeg’s arm.
The pot hit Folia in the knee with a sickening crack, then dropped onto her feet. She screamed. Lori realized the hum she’d noticed but hadn’t paid attention to stopped—the drone of a lot of people talking in the Residence. Footsteps rushed their way.
Draeg lowered the shrieking woman to the floor, his face expressionless. The warrior she’d rarely seen.
“They . . . are . . . in the pantry.” The high, hiccupping voice belonged to Cuspid.
“Betony-Blackthorn’s missing,” a man said. His voice rose, projected from one of the main rooms. “Betony-Blackthorn, what the fliggering hell is going on?”
Draeg ignored the question, so Lori did too.
Her spine straightened. “I’m leaving.”
He closed his eyes briefly, dipped his head; when he opened his lashes again, she thought she saw anguish. “Stay with me. With my Family. We can work this all out. Here in Druida.”
Draeg and she stared at each other.
“To be used as a pawn in FirstFamilies bickering?” she asked.
“I promise you, I won’t let that happen.” He offered his hand. His expression hardened. “I won’t let anyone use you.”
She looked at his hand, blinked tears away.
“I can’t,” she said.
“When it comes down to it, you don’t trust me to help you, do you?” he asked softly.
“I can’t stay!” Tears seemed to fill her whole head. She couldn’t answer the question about trust. She didn’t think she even trusted herself. Trusted no human at all.
His fingers fisted. “You don’t trust me.” He continued in a resigned tone, “You’re leaving your Family in an uproar.”
“An uproar of their own making? Yes, I am. My cuzes tried to kill me, and I should have Family loyalty?” Easier to think of that anger and injustice to herself than how she hurt her lover.
His jaw clenched and a flush came to his skin. He hauled in an audible breath, and then his head angled as if he heard someone speaking to him on a private telepathic stream.
She turned away, but flat words from him stopped her. “What of the general good of the City of Druida? You need to stay to inform the guards—the Captain of the Druida City Guards—exactly what happened here.”
Her face simply froze as her spine stiffened into complete rigidity and she panted breaths through her mouth. “Air the deep problems of my Family to outsiders? Whine?”
He moved around her, seeming to fill the corridor, stance wide and braced. Eyeing him, she didn’t think that she’d be able to get by him. Her head throbbed; her neck and all the way down to her lower back ached.
“Your Family’s problems are already subject to outrageous rumor. Help the guards straighten this out.” Now Draeg sounded cool, professional, detached, and her heart twisted.
Stopping the most bitter words that coated her tongue about him and his spying—she wouldn’t stoop to his level—she turned on her heel. “Very well. We shall see where all this shall go.” Oh, yes, she felt betrayed by everyone in her entire life. She was accustomed to that from her Family, but not Draeg.
On a wave of ire, she whisked out of the pantry, past others watching, down corridors, and into the visitors’ reception room. As she entered, all snapping discussion, orders, and conversation died. Several men and women rose and walked toward her with varying expressions crossing their very Noble features, FirstFamily Lords and Ladies, she thought. The big, rough-looking guy stared at her—the tester, and now she knew it must be T’Ash himself—observed her.
Another, more elegant white-haired man in the uniform of the guards turned toward her.
She held her palm out. “Stop. I will say my piece once and nothing more.” She swallowed and she dug deep for a Voice she, herself, had never used but only heard, a Voice of Command.
“Residence, project all recorded actions on the south roof walkway beginning when Vi confronts me onto the closed curtains.”
Thirty-eight
To her surprise, it complied. The image wavered as it followed the dips and bulges of the curtains, but the golden silkeen color didn’t show through the viz. She saw herself alone, setting a last cutting into a bag.
Then Vi came into view and attacked her. Zus arrived and pulled a blaster.
“Stop!” The rasping order came from an old-and-ravaged-faced Cuspid. “Lies. This is a complete falsehood. My daughter would not have acted like that.”
The image flicked off.
“Denial,” someone murmured, and Lori heard that truth. Cuspid had sunk into his own little world where his children were honorable and he wasn’t broken.
“What say you, Residence?” demanded one of the other FirstFamily lords.
The house remained silent.
“We always believed Loridana Itha might go mad and tell stories.” Cuspid shook his head. “Such a curious nature and imagination and rebellious streak the child has.” A pair of bracelets appeared in his hands.
“I’m done, and I’m gone.” Lori rapidly backed away to the door.
“Those are DepressFlair bracelets,” T’Ash rumbled. “Who would use DepressFlair bracelets on the Head of a Family?”
“Who would even have DepressFlair bracelets?” a lady’s high voice demanded.
Lori dodged around an appalled Draeg and ran toward the pantry, fairly sure that not one of the outsiders would stop her, and they would stop Cuspid with his dreadful bracelets.
She had to get away, now, because sickness washed through her in waves with every pounding footstep. Her worst nightmare had come true. She’d discovered that her Family had never even liked her at all. That the Residence would always listen to someone else before it heard her.
Yes, absolute
ly, let them all, Family and Residence, deal with the results of their actions and beliefs.
Too curious? She’d asked too many questions before she knew it best to keep silent.
Too imaginative? Because she wondered what life was outside the estate? Yes.
Too rebellious? That was true. And not in what she thought was a standard childlike way.
A weird sound came to her ears and she realized she mewled, even as her vision blurred. She scuttled along hunched over, her hands wrapped around her stomach as if protecting her internal organs.
Stop. Again, stop. So she did, and straightened, and took a softleaf from her trous pocket and mopped up and stuck her emotions about her Family behind a mental door and slammed it and locked it.
At least the Residence wasn’t paying enough attention to her to delay her. No doubt fully occupied with the powerfully Flaired humans in its mainspace.
“Fare well, Residence,” she whispered. And, now, she sincerely hoped it would. She sensed it listening, and the floor creaked like bitter laughter, but it said nothing.
Without another word, and not checking the light, not really caring, going on instinct as she had all this time, she teleported to the stables.
Immediately a wash of love surrounded her. Her six stridebeasts and two horses. She let herself slump, lean against a sturdy corral pole, let tears trickle down her face in the painted colors of the sunset. She sobbed for a couple of minutes before her wretchedness eased and all the mantras and rationalizations and affirmations that she’d dredged up all day to deal with a lost love swirled once more in her mind. Taking a large softleaf from her pocket, she wiped her face, blew her nose, and flicked it clean once more since it had an inbuilt spell.
Distress still hummed through her, giving her energy. Act, now! “Whirlwind Spell traveling garments,” she ordered, and suffered through the cleansing and dressing. But after a minute she wore good, thick leathers, the trous set with a multitude of pockets. She tidily folded up the softleaf and put it away.
A couple of cleansing breaths and she strode to the paddock gate, opened it wide. “We are leaving now.”
She felt an upsurge of excitement mixed with anxiety from them. “I will keep you all safe, all protected with weathershields and personal shields,” she vowed. “We are Family.”
Except one wasn’t here. Baccat? she called, her throat closing at the thought that he’d changed his mind. After all, she could stay and probably become D’Yew in truth, but she didn’t want the responsibility of dealing with the Family, even the remnants of the Family, who’d held no respect for her. Better to be a responsible member of this Family. Baccat? she called again, this time unable to suppress a little break in her mental voice.
You are distressed! You are lacerated in heart and body! I will come!
She sensed him near the main gate of the estate, and his upset soothed her. No, stay there, we will be there in a little while. What distracted you? Because something had, she knew that with her next inhalation, and realized the little confrontation in the pantry had taken a couple of minutes though time had stretched long for her.
I have been watching the great Nobles gathered outside the Yew gates.
More like tormenting them with catcalls. She chuckled, and was surprised she could yet feel amusement.
For an instant she thought of leaving by the little northeast gate as she’d planned, but there was no reason to, and that wasn’t the statement she wanted to make. We will be there shortly. She looked at the herd. They remained inside the corral.
She lifted her chin. “I can cover all of us with a weathershield, and give each of you personal armor on the journey. We’ve been planning for this. If we leave now, we should have no trouble making the wayspot where we can sleep tonight. With prime food.”
Tossing her head with a whinny, Smyrna paced out of the corral; Ragan followed as did the rest of her herd—Lori’s herd. Her Family.
Once they’d lined up, she brought halter, harness, and a pack for each of them and readied them with steady voice and strokes. This settled them and focused all minds on the journey ahead of them. She saddled Ragan but led her through the estate instead of riding, as she would through the entire city, according to plan. What wasn’t going to be according to plan was her route. There would be no weaving through medium-sized streets in the middle of the night to the small southwest gate of the city, but a straight and simple path east, then south to the main south gate.
All those trips, the studying of the map, the imagining of the route, for nothing . . . but it had gotten her accustomed to being in the city, being around strangers, out on her own.
When the last curve of the gliderway revealed the pillared entrance to the estates and the huge greeniron gates—and more people than she’d expected on the other side, all dressed better than she—her steps hesitated.
Baccat, sitting atop one of the tall pillars, turned to look at her, and she felt his cat smile.
Who are all these people? she asked.
Most of the FirstFamilies’ Heads of Households are here to observe events and Us.
Lori swallowed. “Oh, joy.”
There is Zanth’s FamMan, T’Ash.
“T’Ash,” she nearly whimpered. “I left him inside.”
Zanth said he got bored inside, wanted to look at YOU more. You made him curious last night. WE are very important. There is T’Vine and FamCat Rhyz’s woman, Avellana Hazel.
The prophet of Celta and his HeartMate, worse and worse.
Straif T’Blackthorn and Mitchella T’Blackthorn are in the Residence. Draeg let them in.
“Of course he did,” she said faintly. At least she wouldn’t be meeting his Family.
Along with Captain of the Guards, Ilex Winterberry, and Captain of AllCouncils, Walker Clover.
“They’re inside?” she asked, still aloud, though she knew her Fam could hear. One of the horses tossed her head and Lori clamped down on her anxiety.
Yes. Along with T’Holly and his heir, Holm Holly.
The enemies of the Yews. “I’m glad I don’t have to face them.”
But now she came closer, she saw more than those Baccat had told her of. “Who else?”
D’Grove, Captain of the FirstFamilies Council.
“Oh.”
She and T’Ash and T’Blackthorn watched you from behind a screen in the FirstFamilies Council room last night.
So that’s who Lori had felt. She slowed her steps to more of a march. Her Family behind her walked with pride. She’d reached the gates and gestured them open. Saw the man with silver-gilt hair, whom she recognized as Tinne Holly. His arm encircled the waist of a woman in her midthirties who looked a little frightened but determined. Much like Lori felt. The man’s other hand rested on the shoulder of the boy she saw last night. Lori could see the blazer on Tinne’s hip. A girl a little younger than Lori, feeling a lot younger, stood near her mother.
And the nuclear Family of the Tinne Hollys, Baccat ended.
Absolutely the worst. The woman Lori’s MotherSire had wed as a child, tortured, and been killed by in self-defense. The act that had driven Lori’s mother mad. Lori would have to pass them to leave the estate and the city. Calm, deep, regular breaths.
Greetyou ALL! Baccat projected, leaping down from the pillar with grace and Flair and landing a pace outside Yew estate just before Lori stepped from her—former—land.
Lori’s eyes widened as the first man bowed, T’Ash. He winked a bright blue eye. “Greetyou.”
“Greetyou, T’Ash.” Lori inclined her body . . . instinctively as trained, from one FirstFamily GrandLady to her equal, a FirstFamily GreatLord.
“Who are you?” asked the boy near Tinne Holly. “I saw you last night, but not the night before. I told everyone you weren’t the woman who tried to give me a flatsweet.”
Lori’s stomach clutched. She didn’t know all of the twins’ evil actions, and didn’t want to learn them. She nodded to him.
Her steps had slowed
enough that Smyrna protested mentally, and she knew a shove in her back would be coming, so she picked up her pace. “I am Loridana Itha Valerian,” she replied.
He scowled. “Not D’Yew?”
“No. I was never confirmed as D’Yew by my Family. Never had loyalty oaths sworn to me.” Her glance traveled over all the Nobles, rested again on the boy. “I was never confirmed as D’Yew by any Councils, not the FirstFamilies Council, not the Noble Council, not the AllCouncils.”
“You’re nobody, then.”
That hurt a little, but it had always been true.
“Marin,” scolded his mother.
“I am Loridana Itha Valerian,” Lori repeated. But she couldn’t go on. She could not walk past this woman who had been harmed by her Family—by the human Yews to whom Lori was related.
She halted and held up her hand to her herd and they all stopped, too.
Standing in front of the woman, Lahsin Holly, under the fierce gaze of her husband, the wary eyes of her children, Loridana bowed deeply, not watching to see whether they studied her vulnerable neck to strike. Yet bent over, Lori said, “As the former Loridana Itha Valerian D’Yew, on behalf of the Yews and the Yew Residence, I apologize for the actions of my MotherSire, Ioho T’Yew, and all his great cruelties to you. I acknowledge the faults of his actions toward you and that any consequences of those actions were just.” Now she peeked upward and caught an astonished expression on Tinne Holly’s face, and then it relaxed into what she thought was his usual good humor. “I apologize to Lahsin Burdock Rosemary Holly”—Baccat had told Lori the names of the woman that he knew—“and to the Holly Family for the words and actions of my mother, Taxa D’Yew.” She straightened and gathered the glances of everyone else. “I apologize on behalf of the Yews for the actions of Folia, Vi, and Zus Yew to any Family who was harmed by their recent threatening actions, and acknowledge the debt of the Yews and any reparations demanded.”
Heart Legacy Page 33
