by Jean Johnson
Wait . . . blossoms? He blinked and stared upward in confusion. (Teral, am I imagining this, or . . . ?)
(No, I see them, too.) Teral started to say more, but Saleria rose from the mist-chair, her attention clearly still on Aradin’s body and not on the odd change in the dome overhead.
“Well, that was a lot more fun than I thought it’d be,” she purred, dropping onto all fours to straddle his hips and lower her head to his. Kissing him gently, she nibbled on his bottom lip, then deepened it for a moment. Ending it, she smiled at him. “I think we can do that again sometime.”
“Mm, yes,” he growled, twining his fingers in her soft, golden hair. Bower blossom questions could wait. Pulling her close, he kissed her thoroughly.
Teral took brief control of one hand, dismissing the mist-chair with a snap, then gave the limb back to Aradin, who rolled onto his side. Guiding Saleria onto her back, the younger Witch stroked his other hand down her body. He followed his hand with his mouth, nipping and kissing, licking and loving every inch he caressed.
Some of the areas he went to were ones he chose to please; others were suggestions murmured by his Guide. From her breathy moans and the fingers stroking and tugging through his sandy blond locks, both had a good idea of what the Keeper of the Grove found pleasing. Aradin didn’t stop until he had reached her feet, praising her generous loving and repaying it with a bit of foot-worship, kissing and kneading and stroking until she trembled and clutched at the moss.
Her thighs parted enticingly when he finally set her feet down, settling them to either side with her knees bent. Enjoying the sight, Aradin started to rock forward to worship her inner folds, but hesitated. Aside from his steady breaths and her uneven ones, beneath the twittering of birds and chirruping of insects waking up and greeting the rising dawn, there was one more sound. The intermittent plips and plops of sap-droplets falling into their collection pools.
Saleria frowned in confusion when he pushed back from her, rising to his feet. “. . . Aradin?”
“Stay right there,” he cautioned her. “Don’t move.” Casting around, he hurried over to a worktable with his alchemical supplies. One of them was a jar of clean glass rods, with smooth, impermeable surfaces perfect for stirring ingredients without fear of contamination.
Selecting one, he picked his way across the Bower to one particular vine, one with a clear, faintly amethyst sap. Touching the end of the rod to one of its droplets, he gently coated the very tip with a small bead. He carried it back to her, and found her still with her knees up and thighs parted, but with her gaze fixed on the canopy of the Bower dome.
“There are flowers up there,” Saleria stated quietly, frowning in confusion. “Not many, but there have never been flowers on the Bower itself. Well . . . not since the Shattering. Daranen says he’s run across occasional mentions of the gazebo-dome being covered in blooms, but I don’t remember the details. Do you think it’s because we’ve reconvened the Convocation of the Gods?”
“I think that’s a question you will have to pose to Them when you return,” Aradin told her, dropping to his knees between her feet. Sliding his hand up her shin to her knee, then down to rub her inner thigh, he recaptured her attention. He lifted the stirring rod, displaying the tiny drop of sap on its tip. “Do you know what this is?”
Saleria started to shake her head, then blinked and blushed, feeling his fingers shifting to the crux of her thighs. Breathless, she felt him gently part her folds, exposing the little pleasure-bud they concealed. A moment later, her blue gray eyes widened in comprehension. He grinned at her, leaning forward, and she held up a hand, trying to forestall him. “That’s . . . no. No, Aradin. That’d be too much. Don’t—ahhh . . . Bollocks!”
Grinning, he touched the droplet to her flesh. The temperature of the liquid was the first sensation, a tingling coolness that was more akin to chewing a sprig of mint than sucking on a chip of ice. She felt the hard, smooth-rounded end sliding over and around her nubbin, felt the tingling liquid soaking into her skin. Felt every nerve prickling to life with icy heat. Dimly, she heard him murmuring once more for her to stay right there, but she couldn’t have moved anyway.
It was rather like descriptions she had heard of poison-leaf, the oils of which caused an itchy rash which scratching only made worse. Panting, she clung to the moss, knees carefully splayed apart, convinced that if she touched her throbbing flesh or even just pressed her thighs together, the passion rising in her would burn and burn and burn until she had rubbed herself raw in frenetic need.
The sweet, loving bastard returned, knelt once more between her thighs . . . and this time slid the droplet-tipped rod up into her. She convulsed with pleasure, nails digging deep into the thick greenery. That only made it worse, for her hips snapped, wanting more sensation, more thrusting and filling and pleasure from the too-slender, too-hard glass shaft. Aradin had to press down on her belly to hold her still while he worked the rod in and out a few times. Worse, he turned it, coating her in pleasure internally.
“B-Bastard! Bastard, bollocks, b-buhhh!” She couldn’t think of any other b-words to call him or to curse with; her body was melting, turned into liquefied fire by that second drop. She was a burning sap-pool of flesh and need.
Withdrawing the rod, Aradin rose and carried it back to the jar, muttering a strong cleaning spell twice to be sure it was safe. He didn’t want to just toss it aside and risk the brittle glass breaking, not when his intent was to make love to her thoroughly. Once it was tucked back into the jar, he returned to find her legs fluttering open and shut, her hips twitching and rolling. Crouching, he crawled over her—and found her legs snapping up and around him, ensnaring him as fast as that thettis-vine.
With a hard twist, Saleria rolled him onto his back. Settling over him, she growled and nipped at his chest, his collarbone, his chin, until her loins were snuggly settled against his. She rocked against him, nestling his re-hardening shaft among her potion-doused folds. The sound of his breath catching pleased her, but it wasn’t enough. Reaching between them, she grasped his shaft and teased the head into her opening . . . then sat up, sinking down onto him.
That scratched the sap-itch. She hummed softly in pleasure, in brief satisfaction, then rocked up and dropped again. And again, and again and again, until she had to toss her hair to get it to stop clinging to her sweating face, until he had to cup and guide her hips for fear of losing his place. Back behind her ears in that spot where she heard the voices of Kata and Jinga, where she heard Teral’s, she could hear the Guide groaning in pleasure. She heard Aradin’s, too, with her outer ears, and grinned.
“Thought you could . . . mmm . . . infuse me with pure lust . . . without consequences?” she panted, struggling to think.
Aradin grinned and pulled her down, pinning her on him. “I was planning on it! But first . . . oh, Goddess . . . I was going to . . . to . . .”
It was hard to think. Saleria leaned over him, palms braced on his chest. “You were going to . . . ?”
He looked straight into her eyes. “Lick you.”
His tongue darted across his lips. Saleria shuddered, undone by the blunt promise in his words, in his gaze. Flinging her head back, she rode him through the waves of her bliss, rode him through his, and let the aftershocks carry both of them onward, around and around.
Overhead, every vine and branch and bark-covered root in the Bower burst into bloom, the translucent blossoms so thick, their petals could have blocked out the rising light of the sun, if they hadn’t glowed like fragments of stained glass.
* * *
They slept as hard as they had made love. The first to wake, Saleria breathed deep, stretched languidly, and rolled onto her back. Opening her eyes, she found the Bower dome still covered in blossoms, blotting out half the sunlight and not really giving her a clue as to the time of day, other than somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of late morning, midday, or early afternoon.
Kata smiled down at her, an impish sort of look one might expect to see more on the paintings and sculptures meant to represent Jinga, not Her. (Good afternoon, My dear.)
My Goddess . . . Oh bollocks, I’m naked in front of my Goddess. She started to wince, then opened her eyes in a panic, glancing at the man at her side. Aradin is naked in front of my Goddess!
Laughter filled her head, sounding like perfectly tuned bamboo wind chimes. (Did you not say that We see you even when you’re sick in bed? Don’t be silly, Keeper. I have manifested not to ogle your bodies . . . though he is a nice one, isn’t he?) Kata observed on a smug, feminine aside. ( . . . But rather to let you know what We have done to the Grove. When you return to the Arithmancer, let her know the aether in western Katan will be calm and still by the end of this Convocation.
(For your safety and for Groveham’s sake, My Husband and I have rounded up all the stray mutations, and separated those with components that were too dangerous to keep, yet too dangerous to let loose. The rest . . . They have either been restored to pure specimens, or will have usefulness in the days and years and centuries to come. But what that use is . . . that is your task, the three and four and more of you to come. And you will still have to tidy the paths and catalogue what’s left before you should let people in without an alert escort,) Kata told her. Or rather, told both of them.
Aradin mumbled something, pawed at his face, wiped some of the sleep-sand from the inner corner of one eye, and squinted up at Her. His voice was deeper than usual when he formed coherent words. “Thank you. Your intervention is deeply appreciated, and Teral and I truly appreciate the shortening of our task. But, umm . . . Why is the Bower covered with flowers?”
Kata spoke out loud, lips curved in Her beatific, serene smile. “What, that? Oh, that always happens whenever a Keeper makes love with her or his true love in here. It’s a side effect from when Jinga and I . . .”
“I don’t need to know, honest,” Saleria quickly interjected. Naked and sated from lovemaking and rest, she twisted onto her side and held up her hands. “I’m overwhelmed enough by the mortal version. I don’t need to envy the godly kind.”
Jinga’s boisterous laugh filled the Bower. He came striding into view through the eastern path, one of Saleria’s crystal-topped pruning staves resting on His shoulder. The end of it glowed red, and in its light, every flower within reach grew visibly larger. “No worries, Keeper. When you join with the right person for the right reasons, it is always special. Not necessarily as intense every time, but special.”
He offered His hand to Saleria, who accepted without hesitation. It was warm and strong, like clasping solidified sunlight for all that it seemed to be an ordinary brown hand. There was no fear in her, no worry; she had His approval, and that was all she needed.
The moment she stood, she could feel her body covered in soft fabric. A glance down showed it surpassed her best Keeper’s garb. The tunic and trews were pure white edged with a rainbow of flowers stitched along the edges of the sleeves, hemlines, and neck in appliquéd silk. Her overrobe had long sleeves instead of the sleeveless vest version she was accustomed to wearing, and when she released Jinga’s hand to finger the collar, she discovered the slight weight behind her shoulders was nothing less than a deep hood.
A glance at Aradin showed him being helped to his feet by Kata . . . and a ripple of black that flowed down over his body. It, too, was covered in silk flowers at all the hems. The plain black edges of the neck-to-toe opening did not have flowers, but the cowled hood did. Amusingly enough, the clothes beneath the mostly black cloak echoed hers in cut and flower, save that the main color was also black, where hers was white.
Bemused, she looked at her Patrons. With Their approval of not only her work as Keeper, but of her choices in life, she was not afraid. In fact, she dared to tease the Boisterous God a little. “Does my cloak come with access to the Dark as well? Instant clothing changes and all?”
“No; that would require you being dedicated to Our divine companions, and We will not part with our best Keeper in centuries,” Kata told her. “These robes—yours and his—are for the Keepers of the Grove to wear, not for Witchly needs. Aradin Teral’s has a Witchcloak lining stitched into his, but it will be removed by Us when it is time for both of you to retire.”
“You both will be able to prune or wither, bloom or transport any plant within the Grove with just a thought and a touch while you wear these sacred robes,” Jinga told her. He paused, then shrugged His shoulders. “That, and on any patch of soil you tread, you’ll leave a trail of tiny flowers in your wake. You might find it annoying after a while, so I suggest taking it off when you’re not being official.”
“They have been crafted to mark Our favor upon you, and to ensure no one can doubt that We approve of your joint continued management of Our Grove,” Kata stated, giving Her mate a quelling look. He accepted it graciously.
“You still have some serious work ahead of you before you can safely reopen the Grove to anyone else,” Jinga warned both of them. He shrugged and spread His hand expressively. “Things like the bleeding hearts, which must be contained and studied before any varieties can be cultivated, or even encountered by the unwary or unprepared. But the treemen have been restored to mere trees, and things like the snake-bush and the thettis-vine are no longer a concern.”
“When you are ready to open the gates and once again celebrate marriages in Our Grove, do invite Us to your own wedding,” Kata told them. She took Aradin’s hands in Hers and kissed his cheek, then did the same to Saleria.
“We’ll be the first ones to wed in here,” Aradin promised Her. “And You’ll be the first ones to know the date, right after we do.”
Jinga chuckled and wrapped an arm around the Darkhanan’s shoulders, squeezing him. “Fate already let us know.” His other arm wrapped around Saleria for an equal hug. “Now get to work. You have only three hours to eat your luncheon, gather your supplies, and inform the people of Groveham that everything is once again safely under your control.”
“And . . . Shanno?” Saleria asked, wondering what They would have to say about that.
“We only grant miracles when they are needed,” Kata chided her gently. “The rest, We leave in your hands. That’s why it’s called free will.”
Releasing the pair, Jinga held out His hand to His Mate. Kata accepted it, the pair stepped into a shaft of sunlight peering down through the blossoms shrouding most of the Bower . . . and vanished.
Saleria stared at the empty air, her heart as light as that sunbeam. It took her a few moments to realize she still had a thousand questions, about the new condition of the Grove, how long it would take them to render it safe for visitors, about the Netherhell invasion, and so much more. But They were gone. “. . . Bollocks to that.”
“Bollocks to what?” Aradin asked, bemused by her expletive. “We’ve just had our task lightened by your Patron Deities, and you’re upset?”
She flipped her hand at the shaft of light. “They left before I could ask all the rest of the questions I’ve been wanting to ask! A load of bollocks, sneaking off like that . . .”
He chuckled at that, and wrapped his black-clad arms around her from behind. Kissing her temple, Aradin murmured, “Never change, Saleria. Remain the brilliant, blunt, beautiful inside-and-out woman that I love.”
(What he said,) Teral agreed in the backs of both of their minds. (Though I do wonder what They meant by “gather your supplies” . . . ?)
Saleria blinked, her mind blank for a moment. Until her gaze settled on one of the nearby vines, its sap trickling slowly
down around the flowers dotting its length. “Oh! Right. Guardian Daemon. He wanted some samples of the sap to analyze. He actually trained as an Alchemist—not so much a Hortimancer, but he says he knows his potions, salves, and brews.”
Aradin looked around the Bower and slowly started nodding. “Yes . . . Yes, I think I can see which ones he’d want to experiment with right away. It’ll probably use up every flask with a stopper I bought from the merchant here in town, and we’ll need a large chest with some cloth for padding . . . that is, if you’re not afraid of helping carry it through the Dark.”
She shook her head, nuzzling her cheek against his. “It can be a very unsettling place . . . but with the two of you, knowing you, trusting you, working with you at my side . . . I’m not afraid, Aradin.”
“You’re not?” he asked, pleased by her acceptance of the odder aspects of his conjoined life.
“Not even with the threat of the Netherhells looming up ahead . . . and the annoying knowledge that They aren’t going to help us so long as we have the power to help ourselves,” she muttered, covering his arms with her hands. A contented sigh escaped her. Unlike in her dream of several weeks ago, she wasn’t going to be forever bound in chains of duties and vines to an ever-worsening problem. “Nope. I’m not afraid.”
SONG OF THE GUARDIANS OF DESTINY
When serpent crept into their hall:
Danger waits for all who board,
Trying to steal that hidden tone.
Painted Lady saves the lord;
Tower’s master’s not alone.
Calm the magics caught in thrall:
Put your faith in strangers’ pleas,
Keeper, Witch, and treasure trove;
Ride the wave to calm the trees,
Servant saves the sacred Grove.
Cult’s awareness, it shall rise:
Hidden people, gather now;
Fight the demons, fight your doubt.
Gearman’s strength shall then endow,
