Lost Truth

by Dawn Cook

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered miserably. “It was Beast. She won’t do it again. I promise.”

  “No one grounds me. Ever,” Beast said tightly, and Alissa went worried. Obviously she and Beast would have to have a very long chat. Perhaps she should also check to see if Beast’s definition of bringing to ground was what she thought it was.

  “How the burning-ash am I supposed to kiss you when you do that?” Strell said, his voice thick with frustration. “If it’s not your ash-ridden bird, it’s your teacher. Now I’ve got to worry about—about Beast?” He jerked in pain as he carefully felt his middle.

  Going more unhappy, Alissa hunched into herself. Somehow in the commotion, her dinner had been spilled. “What does it mean when the woman drops the food on the sand?” Alissa asked, refusing to cry. Beast had ruined everything.

  Hearing the misery in her voice, Strell visibly softened. Moving slowly, he came to sit beside her. The rug dipped as their weight combined, and she slid into him. He cautiously put an arm across her shoulders. Once sure she wasn’t going to hit him, he turned her chin to face him with a single finger. She looked up, blinking at the wry humor in his eyes. There was no recrimination, and her chest loosened as she took a quick breath.

  “It means she’s from the foothills,” he said, the forgiving tone of love thicker than his plains accent. “And the ash-ridden woman doesn’t know the value of food.”

  She gave a hiccupping sob of a laugh, and he stood to pull her to her feet. “Come on,” he said, his face suddenly grim. “Let’s go tell everyone and get it over with.”

  She pulled back even as she stood. “They won’t like it. They won’t let me.”

  “What can they do? You have Talo-Toecan’s permission. Besides, do you care what they think?”

  Her gaze went distant over the incoming surf as she remembered Keribdis’s scorn. “No,” she said, her stomach tight and her mood frightened. “But . . . let me tell Lodesh first.”

  24

  Craning her neck, Alissa held her hand against the lowering sun as she peered into the canopy of mirth trees growing wild outside the village. The interior of the island was covered in them in all stages of growth. She would love to see the island when they were blooming. “Lodesh?” she called, knowing he was somewhere but unable to pinpoint him exactly.

  “Here, Alissa!” came a faint voice. A dusk-darkened bough shook high in the canopy.

  She felt ill, and she was glad she had only eaten a spoonful or two of Strell’s dinner. Hands gripped tightly upon her forearms, she approached a small mirth tree whose girth might be encircled by two people. Looking up, she anxiously licked her lips. How was she going to tell him? “Uh, can I talk to you for a moment?” she said loudly.

  “Come on up,” he sang out. “You’ll like the view. It’s a nice sunset.”

  “View,” she muttered, staring at the smooth trunk as she wondered how he expected her to get up there. “I’m not a goat,” she said, knowing her temper was a thin excuse for her guilt.

  “There’s a ladder on the other side.”

  She was silent, leaning over to see. Grimacing, she sighed and started up. She was puffing by the time she reached the branch Lodesh was on. Her chiming bells gave her away, and he was by the ladder to help her make the transition to the wide branch. His fingers were warm, holding hers with a familiar grip. Immediately she sat down, as uncomfortable with holding his hand as she was balancing up here. She glanced down, thinking if she fell, she wouldn’t have time to shift and catch the wind before hitting the ground. But yes, the sunset was nice.

  Seeing her settled, Lodesh returned to his work. An open box rested in the crook of two branches. Small cuttings were in it. She watched him, deciding he looked right up in the tree-tops despite his fine clothes and tasteful Keeper’s hat. He leaned to reach a distant branch with the balance and dexterity he displayed in his dancing.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, not knowing where to begin.

  “Collecting cuttings from the male trees to air-layer on my grove at home.”

  She was silent as he clipped another green twig as long as her hand and dropped it into his box. Her lips turned into a soft frown. “What for?” she finally said, and he smiled.

  “I’m going to take these back and get them to grow on one of my trees. The next time they bloom, we will have both male and female flowers. That means fertile seeds.”

  He snipped another. “You don’t happen to know how to run a preservation ward, do you?” he questioned. She shook her head, and he added, “I’ll ask Connen-Neute. I would dearly love to see my city full of mirth trees.”

  Alissa’s brow rose as she recalled the undergrowth of young trees she had slogged through to get here. “Too many might not be such a good thing,” she warned.

  “Nonsense!” He stepped onto a branch she thought much too thin. “And if they do, then beggars will have very fragrant fires, won’t they?”

  She managed a humorless smile, her eyes on the distant ground.

  He turned at her silence. His head tilted and his posture slumped. “Ah,” he breathed. “Guilt and happiness all at once? That can only mean one thing.”

  She flicked her gaze at him and away, angry with herself when her eyes grew warm with unshed tears. Ashes. How did she ever get herself into this?

  “He asked, didn’t he,” Lodesh said, and she nodded miserably.

  Lodesh scrubbed a hand over his chin and sighed in resignation. “I thought it would be soon. A plainsman grows a beard for only two reasons, and Strell’s father died years ago.”

  Surprised, she looked up. She hadn’t know what to expect, but not this. “You aren’t upset?” she gulped, feeling useless as she sat on her branch and dangled her feet.

  A heavy sigh slipped from him. Tucking his shears away, he walked confidently down the broad branch to sit beside her. There was a new distance between them. It was very slight, but her heart nearly broke seeing it.

  “Of course I’m upset,” he said, lifting her chin with a finger smelling of crushed leaves. “But I knew he would ask.” He smiled, and her sadness took pause at the glint of mischief in the green of his eyes. “And I knew you would say yes. I only have one question.”

  “What?” she whispered, afraid of the hundreds of heart-breaking questions he might ask.

  “What did Beast do when he kissed you?”

  His question hung by itself for three heartbeats. Alarm trickled through her, pushing her sadness to the back of her thoughts. He wanted to know about Beast? Glancing at him, she rubbed the back of her neck. Her brow furrowed in that he might know something she didn’t. “I—uh—she hit the breath out of him,” she said, warming in embarrassment. “It’s not going to happen again. I talked to her,” she asserted quickly.

  Lodesh smiled from under his yellow curls. He stood, confidence radiating from him. “Yes, it will.”

  “No, it won’t. She just didn’t understand. She does now.”

  He tilted his head, amusement dancing about him. “Oh, Alissa. My silly, bullheaded, so-clever-she-can’t-see-the-forest girl. I love the way you insist on doing things the hard way.”

  Anger pulled her stiff. “What?”

  Turning sideways, he pulled out his shears and snipped a twig. “You know you can’t marry Strell. Talo-Toecan stipulatedyour mother must show favor. And I’m sure Talo-Toecan will keep you so busy the next decade or two that you won’t have another chance to look for her. And even if you somehow miraculously manage to find her and she fancies a tradesman over the administrator of a city for a son-in-law, you will never be allowed to wed Strell.”

  She sputtered, not believing what she was hearing. Tradesman? Though he made his way as a minstrel, he had been born a Hirdune potter! Calling him a tradesman was an insult!

  A twig dropped into the box with the rest. “You cooked your neighbor’s goose when you came looking for the rest of the Hold,” he said, his teeth white in the new darkness. “I think that’s a large part of
the reason Talo-Toecan let you search them out. One thing you can count on with rakus is that they will want a say in everything. Especially if it concerns a transeunt. They won’t allow it.” He shook his head in a rueful fondness. “Probably make a special law for you. And even if you do manage to pull off a wedding, you will never be able to consummate the marriage.” His eyes went knowing. “A feral raku will not allow herself to be taken to ground. It’s why the world isn’t overrun with them. A proper Master might accomplish bedding you with sheer brute force, but Strell? The poor man won’t even be able to steal a kiss.”

  Her face flamed at his frank words, but fear he might be right kept her unmoving.

  Lodesh eyed her gleefully under the lowered brow of his hat. “The way I imagine it, by the time you manage to explain to Beast what love is, Strell will be feasting at the Navigator’s table.” He reached up to an overhanging limb. Using it as support, he leaned close to breathe in her ear, “What’s a few decades more? I’m willing to wait.”

  She stared at him as he straightened. Snapping her mouth shut, she stood up, frantically catching her balance and fending off his help at the same time. “It just so happens, Warden of an empty city,” she snapped as he fell back with an infuriating grin, “that Strell has already met my mother. She gave him a token of her favor before I even met him. We’ve fulfilled Useless’s ash-ridden conditions. There’s nothing they can do to stop us. And Beast will listen to me. She will!”

  Lodesh bobbed his head to acknowledge he heard her words, but his smile told her he didn’t believe them. Infuriated, she hastened down the ladder, almost falling in her rush. She reached the ground as Lodesh started to sing. Furious, she pushed on the ladder. Satisfaction filled her as it crashed into the ground. But it was a short-lived emotion as his singing only grew louder. His voice raised in “Taykell’s Adventure” dogged her like a second shadow as she stormed back to the village.

  “I will marry Strell,” she seethed aloud, swatting at a branch looming out of the encroaching darkness at the forest floor. “And Beast will listen to me. Lodesh will see. No one tells me what I can and can’t do.”

  25

  “You can’t. You won’t.” Keribdis’s emotions of outrage and anger were so strong, Alissa could almost feel them. Alissa’s pulse raced as she struggled to keep from reacting the same. Talon’s claws piercing her shoulder didn’t help.

  Yar-Taw stood between her and the rest of the conclave of Masters, and she pushed past the wall his gray Master’s vest made. Strell stood beside her, his face as set as hers. The air was oppressive under the leaf-thatched shelter, as much from the smothering blackness of night as the arc of Masters staring at her in various stages of shock and disgust.

  Yar-Taw put a calming hand upon her shoulder, and she flicked him a glance, relieved to have found an unexpected ally. The assembled Masters muttered among themselves, both verbally and mentally. A few were sitting on the benches, but the majority stood. Lodesh sat apart from all atop a table at the edge of the light. His elbows were on his knees, and he watched everything with a solemn quiet. Connen-Neute and Strell had reset his ladder and gotten him down. She didn’t understand honor among men. Lodesh had laughed at her, and they didn’t care.

  “I like you, Alissa,” Yar-Taw whispered as the uproar continued. “But you’re making a mistake. Listen to Keribdis. She’s right in this.”

  So, not an ally, Alissa thought bitterly. Just the other side of the gate to the same fence. “Marrying Strell is not a mistake,” she said, her face warming at the implied insult.

  “It is,” Yar-Taw insisted, and Alissa stiffened at Keribdis’s muttered expletive. “This is a fancy,” he continued. “It’s not love. Love does not happen over a winter.”

  Alissa’s jaw clenched. “It does if you think you aren’t going to live to see the spring.”

  Yar-Taw put a second hand on her other shoulder. She shrugged his long fingers off, feeling the oddness of them for the first time. She shifted closer to Strell. They were ignoring him as if he were nothing but a symptom to a larger problem. It infuriated her.

  The background murmur of the Masters ebbed. Keribdis glanced over them. “She can’t join with him,” she said, her words clipped and short. “He’s not a Master. Wolves, he’s hardly a commoner. Nothing ever came from the Hirdune line. Nothing ever will.”

  A cry of outrage slipped past Alissa. Talon began to hiss in response to her anger.

  Neugwin stepped close. The matronly woman glanced uneasily at Talon before taking Alissa’s hands. “Alissa, dear,” she said, and immediately Alissa took offense. “All children are precious. But to have a child who can’t ride the wind? Always left behind? Lacking? Give us a few hundred years, and we’ll have a suitable match for you. You must learn patience.”

  Alissa pulled her hands away. She took a slow breath to try to find a false calm. “I’m not asking for your permission,” she said. “Strell has a token of favor from my mother. We met Talo-Toecan’s stipulations. We fulfilled our end of the agreement.”

  At the word, “agreement,” there were several groans. “All agreements aside,” Keribdis stated, “you aren’t officially an adult. Technically, you’re still a child. A child as much as Silla is.” A slow satisfaction eased over the woman. “You won’t be marrying anyone,” she said in a low threat. “Be on the beach tomorrow morning—student.”

  The entire congregation of Masters seemed to sigh in relief. The overwhelming tone of outrage turned to quick agreement: still a child, conflict ended, time for dinner.

  Alissa hesitated. Keribdis called her a child, and that was it? She glanced at Connen-Neute, then Yar-Taw. “What does she mean?” she asked as the Masters left.

  Yar-Taw’s silence made Alissa all the more upset. She turned to the disappearing crowd with wide eyes. Talon crooned as the tension under the shelter eased. The first faint inklings of panic went through her. “What does she mean, I’m not officially an adult?”

  Connen-Neute dropped his gaze. “Masters are only given a verbal name when born,” he said softly as he came close. “They don’t receive a written word to represent their name until later. You inscribe it on the cistern to make it official. After that, you symbolically cleanse your old life away in the cistern, then fly from the opening of the holden as an adult.”

  She spun to Yar-Taw, her breath tight. “I’ve done that.”

  The Master’s brow furrowed. “Alissa . . .” he said warningly.

  “I’ve done that!” she insisted, ignoring the numerous protests of disbelief. The leaving Masters hesitated. “When I was trapped in the holden, I scratched a name on the cistern wall,” she said breathlessly. It had been the word for “useless,” but if it meant she could marry Strell, she would live with having that word represent her name.

  Elated, Alissa turned to Lodesh. Her excitement died as he met her eyes from under his hat. “And I fell in,” she said hesitantly. “And when I left, I didn’t crawl up the tunnel, I rode out on wings.” They had been Useless’s wings, but she had flown. “Ask Lodesh,” she said, her voice suddenly weak. “He was there,” she warbled.

  All eyes were on Lodesh. All thoughts were held still.

  Lodesh looked at her with no expression. Her heart clenched. She had no idea what he would do. He slowly slipped from the table, tugging the cuffs of his shirt straight as he gathered himself. Her held breath escaped her, and she caught it again. A sly grin eased over him, and Alissa went colder. “You will be with me someday,” he whispered into her mind. “I understand you love Strell, but you’ll love me again, as you once did in the golden fields of my city.”

  Alissa’s knees felt weak, and she thought she was going to pass out.

  “Yes,” Lodesh said loudly, and the conclave exhaled in a loud sound of dissent. A smile twitched the corners of Lodesh’s mouth. Apparently he felt secure in that she and Strell wouldn’t be able to consummate the marriage. “She did,” Lodesh affirmed as several voiced their doubts. “She added a name to the
list, fell in, and flew from the holden.”

  Alissa put a shaky hand to her head to hide her eyes. Talon began calling in excitement as the crowd exploded into a furor of noise. Keribdis stood stock-still, frustrated. “She still can’t marry him,” Keribdis said above the babble. “We can’t. We can’t let a Master marry a commoner. It just isn’t done!”

  “It’s going to be,” Alissa whispered. She looked at Lodesh, trying to thank him with her eyes as she couldn’t bear to touch his thoughts again. She had asked for his help, and he had given it. Before the moon had even risen on the day she chose Strell, he had given it.

  Keribdis sashayed closer. Her frustration had been replaced by a predatory gleam. “An adult,” she said, and Alissa blanched at the woman’s bound fury. Talon gave a squawk at how near the woman was, and Alissa plucked the bird from her shoulder and covered Talon’s head. “If you’re an adult, then you will be treated as such,” Keribdis said. “You will marry whom we decide. You’re the Hold’s transeunt. Your very existence belongs to us.”

  Alissa’s heart beat faster and her jaw clenched. She belonged to no one. Talon began an eerie crooning, her signal she was going to attack. The beak worrying Alissa’s fingers became aggressive. Panicking, Alissa sightlessly shoved Talon at Strell. The bird squeaked and fought, but Strell bundled her up in the scarf Connen-Neute handed him.

  “Be on the beach in the morning,” Keribdis said, her black eyebrows raised mockingly. There was a tug on Alissa’s thoughts as a red sash appeared in Keribdis’s hands. The woman dropped it at Alissa’s feet. “Wear it. I will begin your moral studies tomorrow. It seems you have—none at all.”

  Keribdis’s eyes flicked to Talon screaming in Strell’s grip. Sedate and confident, Keribdis left. Several Masters trailed behind her. Slowly the shelter emptied. Strell’s breath slipped from him as he sat down. Connen-Neute was the last to go, giving her a pitying look, which she was too upset to take offense at. She never saw Lodesh leave, but he was gone.