The Forests of Dru

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Oh, there’s lots more rumors than that,” Baeltya replied cheerfully. “How about you let me in on some of the truth?”

  How to begin on such an enormous topic? “Being a sorceress means I absorb magic from the world.”

  Baeltya nodded encouragingly, so she continued.

  “If someone touches me, it creates a kind of conduit, their skin conducts to mine and all sorts of stuff comes in. Thoughts, emotions, without filter. Depending on the sort of person they are, it can overwhelm me.”

  “Hmm.” Baeltya looked thoughtful. “Are all Bárans like you?”

  “Only the magically inclined. And I’m unusually sensitive.”

  “So the magically inclined don’t have children—because you can’t touch anyone,” she reasoned.

  The healer did possess a quick mind. “Your logic is sound, but there are exceptions. Some people are … better suited. Our mothers and fathers don’t impact us. They’re more in harmony, in a way.”

  “I see. So, despite the differences between our peoples, you found this harmony with His Highness and so are able to be his lover.”

  Oria didn’t bother to correct the healer on that. If Lonen’s brothers suspected the truth, that she could never fully be Lonen’s lover and bear him heirs, they’d take it as one more reason to depose him. If she’d found an ideal match among her own people, she might have borne children. “There are other possibilities, too,” she continued. “Some people have developed control of themselves so they don’t leak nearly so much.”

  “Aha. Control. I’d wondered about that. Can you sense my thoughts and emotions from there?”

  “You just believe me on all of this?”

  “Why would you lie?” Baeltya shrugged. “We’re working on the assumption of trust here. You trust that I want to help, that I’ll keep your secrets and I’ll trust you in turn not to harm me and to tell me the truth.”

  “Harm you?”

  “You’re a powerful sorceress. I’ve heard the stories of what magics your people can wreak. I’ve treated many warriors returned from your walled city, wounded by forces difficult to comprehend.”

  It’s better if they fear reprisals from you. Oria understood Lonen’s reasoning there—he wanted to protect her—but she’d never wanted to be feared. “All right. At this moment, I’m not reading your thoughts and emotions. The closer you are to touching me, the more I can sense, particularly if I try.”

  “You can control how much you receive then?”

  “Yes, to some extent.” She found herself smiling. “Lonen doesn’t much care for me prowling around in his head.”

  Baeltya grinned back. “I can just imagine. Let’s try this. Over your sleeve is okay, yes?” When Oria nodded, the healer put her hand on the longer fur of the cuff of her robe, very close to the skin of her wrist. “What can you sense?”

  Oria drew in a breath and allowed her senses to open ever so slightly. She wasn’t as attuned to Baeltya as she was to Lonen, but the woman’s presence resolved crisply and suddenly in her mind’s eye. Resonant with bright green energy, her emotions shimmered like leaves in a spring storm. Sincerity, curiosity, a desire to help, a sense of urgency. Images followed: Baeltya as a girl, making her vows to the goddess, the sense of Other filling her, making her whole again. Not so alone. There she was even younger, an orphan, weeping over her parents on a farm, their bodies sliced to ribbons, livestock similarly dead and bleeding everywhere. Old, deep grief.

  Oria yanked herself back, meeting the healer’s calm gaze. “You were so young,” she said. “The golems. Our golems—they did that, killed your family, destroyed your farm?”

  Baeltya yanked her hand back as if burned. “You saw all of that?”

  “I’m sorry. When I said I can control it, that’s an exaggeration. Sometimes I see more than I mean to. I didn’t intend to invade your privacy.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Baeltya rubbed her fingertips together. “I wanted to show you what the goddess-sent healing feels like. The rest must be attached to that.”

  “Strong emotions can be that way,” Oria agreed. “Tied to old memories. We can stop there.”

  “No, no—that was a first step. To find the baseline, if you will. Now I want to try something else.” Baeltya closed her eyes as she had with Lonen, stilling herself. Her presence drew back palpably. Much like a Báran meditating to nourish a state of hwil, Oria realized with a sense of dislocation. The Destrye knew of such practices? But how, and why did the temple—“All right,” Baeltya broke into her whirling thoughts, her voice even, slightly remote, “I’ll touch your sleeve again.”

  She did. Oria waited for the return of the Destrye woman’s presence and memories.

  “Anything?”

  “No.” How curious. Not even a breath of that green vibrant energy.

  “I’m going to touch your skin. Tell me if it pains you.”

  “Believe me,” Oria replied, bracing herself for the agonizing onslaught, “you’ll know.”

  Baeltya smiled slightly, then slowly moved her hand onto Oria’s. Anticipating the jolt of searing invasion she’d experienced before, Oria jumped a little at the shock of contact. The healer opened her eyes in concern, but didn’t move. “Yes? No?”

  To her astonishment, Oria felt nothing from the woman. Just a warm hand on her skin and a hint of something, like the faint scent of the inside of a leaf. “That’s amazing. I’m fine. How did you do that?”

  “I kind of reversed what I normally do, so I wouldn’t flow into you. Now I’m going to see if I can do an assessment without changing that flow. Is that all right?”

  Oria relaxed back, stunned to feel so reassured by the soothing contact. “Yes. Go ahead.”

  The healer’s energy flowed through her, but without invasion. Like a soft evening breeze that sifted over her skin, but never stirred her hair. In its wake, warmth lingered behind, a hint of the desert sun Oria missed in her very bones, along with a kind of well-being she hadn’t felt since her father died and her mother collapsed. She nearly melted into the chair with the sweet surcease of it.

  “You’re starving.”

  At Baeltya’s words, Oria forced open her heavy eyelids to find the Destrye healer standing before her, rubbing her hands together in a way Oria recognized—a method for shedding accumulated magic.

  “Why are you starving?” the healer mused, almost to herself. “I’ve done what I can for you, and you napped for a bit which did you good, but you’re going to have to help me here. We don’t have much food, what with the rationing, but you clearly need more than you’re getting. Or do you need a different kind of food?”

  “I don’t think any kind of food will help,” Oria told her. At least whatever the healer had done for her helped fend off the specter of despair.

  “Oria—I’m not sure you understand. I’ve seen people who’ve starved to death who weren’t as far gone as you are. We need to take action or you won’t last much longer.”

  “How much longer?” Lonen asked from the doorway, startling Oria. She hadn’t heard him open the door. Nor had Chuffta warned her.

  “You were sleeping. It was good for you.”

  Lonen strode in, barefooted, wearing only his leather pants, his hair hanging down his back, and took Baeltya by the shoulders. “Tell me straight. How much longer?”

  ~ 4 ~

  He missed Oria immediately when he awoke, knowing with some deep sense he’d acquired that she wasn’t in the room. The warm weight nestled against his side stirred, and Chuffta lifted his head, emerald green eyes shining like jewels in his narrow, triangular face. He’d liked being able to hear the derkesthai’s thoughts—snotty as they’d been at the time—because reading the expression in that reptilian gaze wasn’t easy. As if understanding, which he might, Chuffta cocked his head and lifted his wings in a very human-seeming shrug.

  Lonen chuckled and lifted a tentative hand to scratch the spot between the golden horns that curved out of Chuffta’s head and rub the surprisingl
y soft white ears that flanked them. The derkesthai leaned into his hand, making a rumbling sound of pleasure that sounded much like a cat’s purr. Not an easy spot for Chuffta to reach, that little valley, Oria had explained, and Lonen could see why. After a moment, though, Chuffta pulled away and looked at the door. A murmur of feminine voices where there had been silence.

  “Best see what’s up, eh, Chuffta buddy?” He levered himself up, feeling considerably less winded, his side moving more easily as he pulled on his pants. He could be the better man and admit they’d been right about treating him. That would be the answer to ending this enforced inaction. He needed to get into top form—okay, at least working condition—to find Oria a sustaining source of magic.

  The rest could wait, Arill take them.

  Opening the door, he heard the tail end of the conversation, words that chilled his blood. …or you won’t last much longer.

  “How much longer?” he demanded. Oria whirled in the big chair that dwarfed her slight frame, her mass of hair crackling, strands rising with static like the flames leaping behind her, copper eyes enormous in her white face. So much thinner. He’d noticed it before, but her unusual appearance always struck him as exotically beautiful. Now he could see how her high cheekbones stood out like knife blades, her skin seeming nearly transparent enough for them to cut through. Seeing her clearly, without the fog of love and relief at having her alive and with him, filled him with rage that he’d been allowing himself to live in a fantasy the last few days.

  Does nothing dim your optimism?

  Apparently, a dose of reality from a healer did. Baeltya’s eyes widened, though not in alarm—concern?—as he took hold of her and asked how much longer.

  “I can’t answer that,” she said.

  He resisted the urge to shake the truth out of the woman. Baeltya had the sheen of Arill about her, as all the best healers did. She knew more than she let on.

  “Can’t or won’t?” he snarled.

  “Lonen.” Oria was beside him, hand hovering next to his arm, where normally she’d touch him if he’d remembered to put on a shirt. “Baeltya helped me. She can touch me without harm. Don’t break her.” A smile ghosted around her lips.

  He let go of the healer. “I didn’t hurt her,” he grumbled. “Wait—she could touch you?”

  “Yes.” Oria nodded with a broad smile. “Something to do with her healer’s control, like our hwil.”

  “Is this something I can learn?” he demanded of Baeltya. The possibilities whirled in his mind, while the healer gaped, clearly thrashing for an answer to the odd question from her king.

  “It would involve meditating, no doubt,” Oria teased him. At least some of her mischievous spirit had returned.

  “To lie with you, I’d learn even that,” he told her with fervor, and she shifted, flicking a cautious glance at Baeltya. “Fine. We’ll pursue that later. I want my straight answer.”

  Baeltya held up her palms, unruffled. “I can’t answer, not won’t. Oria isn’t just foreign, she’s different from the Destrye in many ways. Her physiology and energy feel unlike anything I’ve encountered before. I’d hesitate to predict anything with her.”

  “But you said you could compare her to other patients, who you knew to be starving.”

  Baeltya frowned in thought. “Yes, I can discern that much, though even that is odd. She ‘feels’ malnourished to me on both those physiological and energetic levels. I don’t understand it.”

  “Then you should have a sense of how long she has.”

  “I don’t. I have some ideas that might—”

  “Stop hedging, healer. How long?”

  “She should be dead already!” Baeltya snapped. “If she were Destrye, she would be.”

  It took a moment for his stricken heart, to catch up to a regular beat. “You have to help her.”

  “I am working on it, Your Highness.”

  “Enough of this,” Oria put in with some asperity, her voice cutting. “I do happen to be standing right here. I’m not one of your horses that you can be debating whether it’s too ill to be put down.”

  “Of course not, love,” he said, with some chagrin. Baeltya noticed the endearment, drawing in a breath, and looking between them. Better to make that clear, too. He’d kept them closeted too long. His people—and his family—would soon learn that he would not budge on his feelings, or on Oria’s place in his life. He’d abdicate first, if they forced him into it. “I apologize.”

  Oria smiled at him, copper eyes soft with an affectionate glow she reserved only for him and Chuffta. “There’s your one for the day. Baeltya, you said you have ideas? I feel much better for your treatment, so I’d like to hear them.”

  “Well, let’s start with the prosaic. Do you normally eat anything that you’re not eating now?”

  Oria’s smile quirked a bit to the side. “That’s an easy yes. Almost nothing here is what I ate before.”

  “Like what?”

  “I never ate meat before this. Bárans eat lots of fruits, leafy greens, vegetables, grains. We do eat bread, like you do.”

  Baeltya cast him a look, making him feel abruptly like a careless boy again rather than King of the Destrye. “Why haven’t you ordered these foods brought to her?”

  “Meat is good for her,” he grumbled. Arill knew he’d gone to enough trouble to force it down her stubborn throat. Now that he had her compliant on the matter, he’d kept up with it. Meat built muscle and bone, didn’t it?

  Baeltya sighed heavily for his idiocy, putting her hands on hips and shaking her head. “Your Highness,” she began, as if using his title again would mitigate the scolding to come, “a person who’s spent her entire life, whose physiology for generations—” she cast a glance at Oria for confirmation.

  “At least,” Oria replied.

  “Whose physiology for many generations is acclimatized or even adapted to extracting nourishment from non-meat sources, cannot simply go to an all-meat diet and thrive on it. Her body isn’t set up to process it effectively.”

  “It hasn’t been all meat,” he said in his defense, though really there wasn’t any. “There’s been bread, too.”

  Oria laced her fingers together. “I mainly eat the bread,” she confided, and Baeltya threw up her hands.

  “What?” Lonen stared at her. “What about all the meat I give you?”

  She lifted her chin in defiance. “I can’t eat all that. It makes my stomach hurt, so I slip it onto your plate when you’re not looking. You need it, too.”

  He processed that, stunned. “Oria, if you think—”

  “Arill save us,” Baeltya interrupted. “All right, at least this I can do. It’s the wrong season for leafy greens, but we do have stores of various grains, root vegetables, and dried fruits. What about fruit juices?”

  “I would kill for some fruit juice,” Oria replied with fervor.

  Lonen absorbed her bright-eyed enthusiasm with a growing sense of betrayed injury. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I’d give you anything you asked for.”

  Baeltya cleared her throat. “I’m going to step out for a moment and get a nourishing meal on its way while you two sort this out.”

  Oria thanked her and waited for the outer door to close, returning her somber gaze to his. “Let’s sit.” She went back into the bedchamber and took her accustomed place by the bigger fire, curling her bare feet up under her, tucking them beneath the hem of the furry robe. Chuffta had also returned to his nest before the fire, the fine tip of his tail tapping in welcome, though he otherwise didn’t move. The both of them, still adjusting to the cold. And it wasn’t even deep winter yet. For himself, he left his shirt off as he sat, the fire almost too hot for him. A small sacrifice to make.

  “Lonen,” she began, twisting her fingers together, “this is a strange place for me to be.”

  “I know Dru is different, but you’ll get used to it. You’ve barely seen this land. Wait until I show it to you.”

  “It’s not that.�
� She shook her head slightly, then tucked a heavy lock of her shining copper hair behind one ear. “I mean, I look forward to seeing Dru. From the few leaves I’ve seen, the trees must be enormous. And lakes! I want to see those, too. No, I mean, it’s strange for me to be in this position where absolutely everything I need comes through you. Food, clothing, this fire, healing. My very life depends on you and I don’t … like asking for more.”

  “You don’t like it,” he echoed, feeling a dangerous edge, though he tried to contain it.

  She eyed him warily, far too sensitive to his moods. “Don’t get angry.”

  “I’m not.” Though he was and they both knew it. “Let me ask you this—how can I know what you need if you don’t like asking for it?”

  Her eyes flashed hot copper. “Don’t pull attitude with me, Lonen. I’m trying to be honest here.”

  He flung himself out of the chair, pacing off the surge of … okay, anger. First his cursed brothers, now this. “Since you’re being so honest, how about telling me why in Arill you still don’t trust me? I thought we were past this. You’re my wife, Arill take you. You know I love you; you say you love me. We’re in this together. You’re not dependent on me. Everything I have is already yours. Why can’t you understand that?”

  She had her face averted, and Chuffta raised his head, looking to her. She gazed back at her Familiar as they clearly exchanged some confidences, ones that left him out. “What does Chuffta say?” he demanded.

  Oria transferred her gaze to him, her eyes pooled with unshed tears. “That you’re a boor and a brute of a barbarian Destyre warrior and I’m better off without you!”

  Lonen clenched his fists and growled. “He said no such thing.”

  “Then why did you bother to ask?” she snapped at him, tucking herself deeper into the chair and hugging herself.

  “Oria.” The anger drained out of him, like water lost from a broken vessel. He dropped to the rug at her feet and laid his head on her fur-covered knees, wrapping his arms behind her slim hips. “I am a boor and a brute. I’m sorry.”

  Her fingers drifted through his hair, soothing with the relief the caress brought him. “You’re not. I shouldn’t have said so. I’m sorry, too. There—we’re even with each of us over by one for the day.”