by Nhys Glover
"That was incredible," Jaron murmured reverently into my ear. "Can we go again?"
I moaned in horror. My core was so sore I could barely close my legs, I realised. I felt like I had been caught in that whirlwind Rama claimed me to be and now I was spat out. Muscles, I did not even know I had, ached. Yet I felt euphoric. The joy of our joining was sublime, even now.
"I'm starting to see why harems are usually the other way around. One woman cannot meet so many men's needs," I complained, fighting the urge to press my hand over my mound to ease the ache there.
"You can," growled Rama into my other ear as he nibbled on the lobe. "You did. And there are few men who could service four women at one time. This was the perfect arrangement. If you have to share a mate."
"Do you feel like you have to share me?" I asked, suddenly contrite. This was my idea and mayhap he went along with it because it was the only way he could have me. And even then he did not actually have me. He was the only one who did not, I realised. Three different men had been inside me, taking turns with me. Mortification rose up again.
Rama nudged my earlobe with his nose and breathed me in. "You smell like my seed. And I didn't mean it that way. Or maybe..." He fell silent, as if sorting through his conflicted thoughts and feelings. "Do I wish you were mine alone? Aye. But I also know that it would not be good for you to be mine alone. You need more than I can give you. And for the first time in my sorry life I want what is best for someone else. Did I want to be inside you, your focus totally on me? Oh, aye. But coming in your hair was better than being inside any other woman. And... oddly... what we all did... It was almost better than the night on the river bank. Almost." I felt him grin against my neck.
Darkin rose to a sitting position. "You must be sore. I'll go order you a bath with those herbs the healers use."
I grabbed at his arm as he made to stand. "Look at me."
He turned and met my gaze, his expression conflicted.
"You think less of me for this, do you not?"
His gaze grew fierce. "Nay, no! Of course not. I... I think less of myself for agreeing to it. I feel we used you like a whore in the heat of the moment. That was not... That was not what it was for me."
"What was it for you?" I asked in a small voice.
Darkin looked embarrassed and he glanced from one to the other of his brothers. "You're the Goddess Incarnate. I know that now with every fibre of my being. I worshipped you with my body. It was the most profound experience of my life." These were the exact sentiments I received from Calun. It was a deeply profound experience for me too. But that did not mean I saw them as gods, so why did they insist on seeing me as a goddess?
While I considered his words, Darkin paused before going on.
"You stripped away every hard-won protective shield I'd forged around my heart and soul. What we did left me bare and needy, like a newborn babe. And then you filled me up until I felt more than I've ever been in my life. I was transformed."
"We all were, I think," Jaron added softly, all humour gone.
For the first time I felt truly vindicated in my decision to take them all to my bed at once. On some level we had become a different being because of it.
"How long before we can do it again?" Jaron said impishly, to lighten the mood.
I threw a pillow at his head and turned my face into Rama's chest. "Don't turn to me for protection, Goddess. I want to know the answer to that question myself."
I nipped at his nipple and he yelped, twisting out from under me and jumping to his feet. "I will take that as a not for the foreseeable future, then. I'll go find us food, in that case. I'm as hungry as a beastling."
My stomach rumbled its agreement and Jaron laughed. He spoke to my belly as if it was a separate being. "Hold on there, we'll get to feeding you next. You worked very hard for us, you deserve lots of tasty morsels. Other than my tasty morsel, that is."
His jokes were getting worse and I could not help but laugh. Then he too was jumping to his feet and reaching for his tunic. "I'll go see what the healer wanted."
"You saw her there?" I asked, feeling another wave of shame.
"We all sleep with one eye open when we're with you, Sweetling. You're our precious treasure. What kind of protectors would we be if we let someone approach you while we slept unawares?"
I glanced at the others. Only Calun had been fully asleep, it seemed, and he had woken as soon as he felt my emotions surge. The selfish part of me liked the knowledge they were ever on guard; the unselfish part wished they could get the much-needed rest they deserved.
The food arrived before the bath and we sat on our make-shift bed and ate while the midday heated around us.
"Can you accept it now?" Darkin asked, lounging at my side, savouring grapes, dark red and sweet, chilled by some means provided by clever Highlunders.
"Accept it?" I answered vaguely, knowing full well what he was referring to.
Rama nudged my leg, which was still naked. Until after my bath I had decided to stay unclothed. My body was sticky with bodily fluids I did not want to transfer onto clothing. And, besides, I enjoyed the heated glances my men threw my way.
"All right, I know what you mean," I admitted grumpily. "But I think you may be prejudiced. I imagine that the men in other harems think of their mates as incarnated goddesses too. It does not mean it is the case. I do not even know if I believe their story about one all-powerful goddess who created everything. If she was so powerful, why would she let men take over, as they have, and castrate her favoured magical daughters?"
Darkin frowned thoughtfully. "I've never believed in the gods in any formal way. But you can't live close to nature, especially the airlings, and not believe there's something that binds it all together. Is there a woman somewhere doing just that? I don't think so. I don't think whatever it is can be called a man or woman, god or goddess. It's beyond insignificant forms like that. But whatever it is, it feels like one entity, not a lot of divergent entities, like different gods in charge of different parts of the world."
I felt Calun's agreement. I suppose Darkin's explanation fitted what I felt too. Having magic made me aware that there was something beyond what we experienced with our normal senses. But attributing it to a god or even goddess reduced it somehow.
"And there's a pattern in nature, when you look at it closely," Rama added, surprising me. I would never have imagined him looking closely at nature or patterns. But then, was not that part of his depth? That need to control through understanding?
"And this inexplicable surge in magical daughters has to mean something. It's like cupping water in your hands. You try to keep it contained, as the Godling has done by castrating his daughters, but the water gets out anyway. There are meant to be magical daughters, just as there are meant to be magical sons. If the Godling won't allow it, nature finds a way."
Rama looked at me and his brothers to see if we were following.
It made sense. Nature did find a way. And there was a balance in nature, in the elements. Like breathing. We could not always breathe in. We have to breathe out. We cannot always eat and drink. We must at some point eliminate what we have consumed. A seed grows up from the earth into a plant. And then it dies, going back into the earth. A new life cannot come into existence without the contribution of both a mother and a father
"So there was always meant to be women like me. And every so often, when the balance is too badly shifted, more daughters are born by other less potent means. And the Godling stops producing more magical sons until the balance is returned. I can accept that. In which case, I am nothing special."
"I disagree," Darkin said. "You say you think all male harems think their wives are goddesses incarnate. I've spoken to some of them, and that's not the impression I get. They admire their wives, they're proud to be joined with them, and value them as magical beings, but they don't feel awed by them. They don't sound as if they worship them."
"Mayhap they do, but do not want to reveal their vulnerabi
lity to other men," I disagreed. "Did you tell them how in awe of me you are?" I exaggerated the in awe part sarcastically.
He nodded, blushing bright red. "I did confide that information, in the hopes of drawing them out for the very reason you gave."
"You said you worshipped me?" I exclaimed in disbelief.
He shrugged and looked away. "I didn't use that word. Because, until we did... what we just did, I didn't actually worship you. I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to. But something held me back. Then when you stood naked before us, inviting us to be with you together, it just... happened."
"It was intense, but that does not equate with − "
"Don't deny my feelings, Airsha. What I felt was real," Darkin interrupted me angrily.
That stopped me in my tracks. I was busy trying to reduce my importance, but in doing so I was negating Darkin's emotional reactions. That was wrong. I had no right to do that.
"All right," I said on a sigh. "I will not deny your feelings. But there has to be another reason for those feelings, other than me being a gods damned goddess. As you said yourself, what binds the world is more than a goddess, it is a force of nature. I am not that force."
"But that force runs through you," he argued patiently.
"It runs through everyone and everything, that's the point."
"But it's different with you," Rama took over, a little less patiently. "It's like the force lives and breathes through you. You don't just control air, you are air, and so much more. You get into our heads, you −"
"Into your heads?" I exclaimed, interrupting his flow. "I can only do that with Calun. He is the one with the power. He makes that happen."
"No, he can send us pictures in our heads but he can't get into our heads. You can."
"I cannot. Only with Calun!" I said stubbornly.
"I feel every damned thing you feel during sex," Rama exploded disgustedly. "It was a weird experience the first time we were together, until I realised what was happening. It was even weirder this last time when I was feeling what it was like to have my brothers inside you."
My mouth dropped open. My brain stalled, unable to process a single thought after this revelation.
"Gods, I thought it was just me," Jaron said on a relieved sigh. "I didn't want to mention it because that part was weird. I'm not into men and sure not any of you lot. The fact I got off on what she was getting off on was totally new. I've never imagined what it was like to be a woman before."
Darkin smiled with satisfaction. "I think that makes it unanimous. You forged a link between each of us using sex. It's like you're the hub of a wheel and we're the spokes."
"No," I denied. "You are imagining it. Or... Or Calun was doing it. Linking us all together." I knew I had not been in their heads. Only Calun's. He could broadcast my thoughts by accident. But that did not explain Rama's statement that he was in my head when we were alone that first time.
"And you have incredible resilience," Darkin said, ignoring my argument. "You should've died in that wagon, but you got out and fought a man twice your size. You survived the hole they put you in and blood loss that should have killed you. And you pick things up easily, far more easily than ordinary people."
"Your mind works differently, too. You keep telling us what everyone got wrong. That women are the carriers of magic. It's like you know it to be true," Jaron added.
"I am just being contrary. I do not know it's true. I suspect it's true. And all those other pieces of evidence? I am intelligent and resilient. Lots of people are."
Rama threw up his hands in disgust. "She is being bloody-minded. We won't convince her. Maybe the other magical daughters will have better luck. Maybe reading the prophecy will do what we can't."
I did not like being dismissed like this. But he was right. There was nothing they could say that would convince me, because it just was not true. And I refused to be the reason people went to war. If they wanted to die for the free distribution of magic, that was fair. Mayhap Father and all his ancestors had been wrong to try to control what should have been a natural gift available to all. But to fight because they saw me as the incarnation of their fictional goddess, that I would not accept.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"I want to leave here," I told my lovers, my husbands, my men. "But you must agree or we will stay. This must be a decision made by all of us."
I had returned from reading the ancient prophecy and I was no more convinced than before I had read it. In convoluted words it said just what the rebels had told me: from the magically impotent Godling's seed will spring the Goddess' human form, magical, and potent with magic unheard of before. Able to bend the elements to her will, she will be invincible. And her many magical offspring, fathered by many different men, will reinstate humanity to its rightful place as the Goddess' supreme creations. Magic will be the birthright of all.
I could not bend the elements to my will. I could control wind, that was all. And invincible? I had felt anything but invincible in that hole, or later tied to that pole. As to producing 'many' offspring fathered by 'many' men. How many was 'many'? I had four men who might father my childlings. Four was certainly more than the one most women had. But did it qualify as 'many'? Whoever this poor woman was, she sounded like she was going to spend her life as a brood mare, popping out magical babies to appease a magic-starved world.
No, that was not me! So we had to go, either back to the airling homestead or into hiding. I still had my jewels. The Airluds had brought them with them. But they had to be part of this decision.
"Why is it you want to leave? Because you don't think you're the Prophesied One?" Darkin asked in his irritatingly patient way.
"Exactly. I will not allow myself to be used as the rebels wish to use me. Or... mayhap not will not allow. More, I do not wish to be used. I prefer not to be used. I will, if you believe it is for the best, of course." I tried to sound subservient, going so far as to bat my eyelashes demurely at each of them. Of course, Calun could read me like a script. My conciliatory manner would not fool him for a second.
"I don't think they're going to let us just walk away," Rama said thoughtfully. "They've too much invested in this war. We made them start it early; they've all put their lives on the line, coming out into the open to wage the attack on the palace. They're now all criminals in the eyes of the kinglunds. They've only one way open to them now: wage war and take the Godling from power."
"They can do that without me. Us," I said defensively, not liking to feel responsible for the tenuous position I had put these people in. My sisters in.
"Not well. People are joining the ranks every day because they know you've come. If you leave, it'll take the heart out of the revolt. The rebels'll scatter and be hunted down like wild beastlings."
I sighed heavily in defeat. I had escaped one prison after another and now I was once more imprisoned. "So you are saying we must stay and see this through."
"I'm saying that they won't let us leave. You're too important to them. Had we known, when we asked for their help, we would have come up with another plan," Rama said, sounding a little defeated. He ran his fingers through his hair and the frown only added to the already existing deep gouges in his handsome face.
"Just because they won't want us to leave doesn't mean we have to stay," Jaron added. "I've taken the measure of this place. I know the ways out that others don't. And Calun can make sure the airlings are waiting for us wherever we come out. Once astride we can't be caught."
"They could shoot us down," I worried aloud.
"They could. But that would achieve nothing. Having a dead Goddess Incarnate is no better than having a missing one."
"So we could find a way to go, if we decided to," I clarified hopefully.
"Aye." Jaron nodded seriously.
"We're criminals, renegades. Not only will we have the rebels trying to get us back but every kinglund in the world'll be on the look-out for us," Darkin pointed out.
Calun's mind was filled with loneli
ness as he realised he would lose his airlings. But his love for me was now more than his love for them or his brothers. He would follow me anywhere.
Such loyalty humbled me. I did not want to be responsible for him losing such an integral part of his identity, his soul.
A new thought entered my head. It was a compromise, a way to give us breathing space. But it might cost us, especially the airlings.
I knew Calun had picked up on the thought because his back straightened and his brows came down in a deep frown. The first wave of rejection hit me like a blow.
"Just a way to bide our time. I have no intention of taking them to war," I answered him aloud.
"You want us to train airlings for war? A whole army of them?" Rama said suddenly, blinking hard.
I was shocked. I had not said anything about the airlings, certainly not in this detail. I did not think Calun had either.
"How do you know that was what I was thinking?" I demanded unsteadily.
He sighed with exaggerated patience. "You broadcast your thoughts. Or you let down your barriers when you're emotional and I can get inside your head. I'm not sure which. I told you this."
"I read the same thought. But you only want to act as if you're preparing them for war, don't you?" Jaron asked.
I looked for confirmation to Darkin. He shrugged. "I felt your barriers come down but I didn't intrude."
I pushed aside the evidence of this unsettling new development. "So my thought is this: We tell the rebels we can give them an army of airlings. But that it will take time. A suncycle at least. They must have places we can hide while we do it. They won't like the amount of time it will take but they will see the advantage of having so many airlings at their disposal.
"At the end of the suncycle we will either disappear, after putting together a well thought out plan, or join the rebels fully. If it is the latter, then I will tell them we were unable to tame enough airlings in the time given us. Under no circumstances will we force the airlings to go to war for us."
