Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  “I still don’t understand how you are to blame,” Olivia prompted.

  He looked away at the fire. “I gave him a mate who feared him,” he said slowly. “Who despised him, who could hardly bring herself to look at him. It was plain to me and to everyone else that his Judith did not love him. Lorchumn couldn’t see that. For him, coupling was love. And it should be,” he said, cutting one hand through the air in a slashing gesture of frustration. “It should be, but—”

  “Not for us,” Olivia murmured.

  He ducked his head, rubbed at the base of his horns, and finally twitched his wings in a very small, spiritless shrug. “He loved her,” he said. “I wanted them to care for each other as mates are meant to do, but he loved her when she lived in horror of him, and now he is grieving himself into his own grave for a woman who welcomed hers!”

  “I know that you encouraged your people to be gentle with mine,” Olivia said after a moment. “That you wanted us to come together, to be your mates instead of your prisoners. Vorgullum, is that what you regret?”

  “I don’t want to,” he said, not looking at her. “But there are others like Judith…and others like Lorchumn. Olivia, this may not work!” he burst out suddenly. “All the best and most loyal of my hunters have human mates! If they all grieve as Lorchumn does now, what will happen to my tribe? How can I stand tall over them when every decision I make brings more suffering?”

  She opened her mouth to ask him why he thought all the humans would die…and then heard Tina saying that when they failed to give the gullan babies, they’d be killed. But she couldn’t ask him that. Not because she thought he wouldn’t answer anymore, but because she knew he would. Instead, hesitantly, she said, “Vorgullum, do you think you’re too young to be tovorak?”

  “Yes,” he answered at once. “I know I am.”

  “How did it happen?”

  He uttered a crooked sort of laugh. “I have no idea. The old leader hunted with me more and more often, and then he was talking to me nearly every night, and then he died and everyone…everyone was looking at me.”

  “Do you think you are a good leader?”

  “No,” he said quietly, and rubbed at the base of his horns again.

  Olivia slipped her hand next to his and started rubbing, too. He let his hand drop and leaned into her a little, but did not look at her. “Vorgullum, you can’t do this,” she told him. “You can’t spend all of your time thinking you’re not good enough to be tovorak, because eventually you’re going to believe it, and the instant you do, your people are going to know it. Listen to me, Vorgullum, you made a decision. If…if this doesn’t work, you’ll leave this mountain and find another tribe. If the other tribe won’t take you in, you’ll keep looking until you find one that will. Is that about right?”

  She felt him shudder under her hand. “My tribe will never follow me on such a journey.”

  “I think they would. Partly because they know there’s no other choice.” She dropped her hand to stroke his cheek, gently forcing his eyes to meet hers. “And partly because they still need someone else to make the choice anyway.”

  “Even if it’s the wrong one.”

  “Sometimes it will be,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you everything is going to work out, but I do know that things work out just a ridiculous amount of the time, for no better reason than just because. You want proof, go talk to Amy about the number of women who should have been at the place where you took us. What I will tell you is that you…you made the best decision for your tribe. And I trust you to keep doing that.”

  He searched her eyes, but said nothing.

  “I know you’re worried about Lorchumn, and I don’t blame you for worrying about what people will think when they hear him cursing the spirits—”

  He flinched and rubbed at the base of his horns.

  “—but whatever you suspected about Judith’s feelings for him, Lorchumn’s grief is still honest grief, and his love was honest love. That’s just as important for people to know, isn’t it?”

  He stared into the fire, then brought his gaze slowly back to her. “Your words are always wise,” he said. “I have to think about them.”

  She acknowledged this with a nod, then leaned forward, offering her brow for a bump.

  He kissed her instead, his rough lips gentle as they pressed against hers, and she was so surprised that she couldn’t do anything at all but sit there and let him. As soon as she’d recovered enough to try and kiss him back, he withdrew, touched his forehead to hers, and then got up.

  “I am lucky to have you,” he said without looking at her. “I don’t know what I am going to do about Lorchumn, but I have made one decision tonight. I will tell Bundel to take his human back to the hive where we found her.”

  Of all the things he could have said in that moment, that was the one she never expected.

  “I don’t know if it’s the wise thing to do,” he said, and reached up to rub wearily at the base of his horns. “But it is the right thing. You’ve made me see that, as much as I wish not to see…”

  She reached up to take his hand. He squeezed once, gently, then pulled out of her grip.

  “Go to sleep, my Olivia,” he said, turning away. “I will sit with Lorchumn tonight and share his grief. I’ll try not wake you when I return.”

  13

  On the last day of his time of mourning, Lorchumn came to Olivia to ask the human way to dispose of Judith’s possessions. It was clear by looking at him that he didn’t want to, and so Olivia made her answer as vague as possible, but in the end, he decided to keep the comb he’d made for her and throw the rest away. They were human things, he admitted, and they might make the other humans happy to have them, but he didn’t think Judith would want to see them scattered out in other hands. He would burn them. Perhaps, in the spirit world, she would have them again.

  So he did , and she sat beside him while he fed the contents of Judith’s purse to the fire in Vorgullum’s hearth, one by one. Last to go was the wallet, and he opened it first, staring for a long time and in silence at the photos of Judith’s smiling husband before setting it face-down over the embers.

  “How are you feeling, Lorchumn?” she asked. “Honestly.”

  “Honestly?” He backed up to a bench and sat down. “I feel terrible,” he said. “But I think I must be getting better. I was hungry today.”

  “A good sign.”

  “I suppose so.” He turned his face away, choosing to look instead at the fire. “I have to tell you something. I have to tell someone anyway…and you are the only one I trust. Please. Will you listen?”

  “Of course.” She sat down beside him and took one of his hands. It lay in hers limply, too much as Judith’s had done. She made herself keep holding it.

  “Judith…she didn’t like me.” He reached up and swiped at his eyes. “Knowing that is worst of all. I loved her, Olivia, but nothing I did softened her towards me. Now that she’s dead…I find myself thinking evil thoughts.”

  Oh God. “You can tell me,” she said, and tried to brace herself.

  “I think she made herself die,” he confessed, and instantly looked sick with shame. “I think she died just to get away from me.”

  Olivia kept the expression of warm sympathy unaltered by pure force of will. “Lorchumn,” she said gently. “That simply is not true.”

  “I know. And I feel horrible for thinking it, but I can’t stop myself. When I first brought her here, I thought the pit was too small for the both of us…” His gaze shifted to the pit Olivia shared with Vorgullum. “…and now I’m all alone inside it with nothing but guilt.”

  As crass as she had found Vorgullum’s suggestion, Olivia began to seriously consider setting Lorchumn up with a female gulla. Hesitantly, she began, “You don’t need to be lonely, Lorchumn.”

  “I know. The others share my grief as much as they can, but it’s not the same as…as…” He trailed off, then turned a horrified stare on her.

 
; Puzzled, she ran her last words back through her mind, then blinked and let out of peal of nervous giggles, inappropriate as they were. “I’m sorry if that sounded like an offer, but I wasn’t offering me,” she explained, trying to cover her mouth.

  Relief deflated him. He smiled at her weakly, and then returned her giggles with a shaky laugh of his own. “Naturally, I would be flattered, but do you know what your mate would do to me?”

  “Actually, I was thinking in terms of one of the gullan women. Vorgullum tells me there are some younger females who are, um, available.”

  He nodded, distractedly. “Yes, as a matter of fact, there are several. One of them is even attractive, but Judith taught me all I know of coupling. It would be strange to be with a gulla.” He shook his head and glanced back at her. “You must think me perverse.”

  She did think it was an odd way to feel, but shook her head anyway and then changed the subject. “Are you going with Bundel when he goes to return his…that woman of his?”

  Lorchumn put Judith’s comb into his belt pouch and stood up. “He asked me to go with him. Tonight is my last day of mourning. I’ll be free to leave the mountain then, and I think I want to. What do you think I should do?”

  “I think some fresh air would do you good,” she answered neutrally.

  “Yes.” He seemed about to say something more, then stopped and looked down at his empty hands.

  Olivia waited, listening to the fire eat Judith’s possessions. She stood up and moved to face him, laying the back of her hand along his arm. “But…?”

  “The others expect us to return with new mates. Vorgullum expects it. We won’t need tharo to take just two.” Lorchumn lifted his eyes to hers with effort. “And I should do it. I owe it to my people. I owe it to them because I have a strong body and a little wit. But what do I owe Judith?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He panted out a single breath of sad laughter. “I want to bring her back to life.” He shook his head. “I can’t even look at a human without thinking of her. It hurts. I used to laugh at songs like that. There’s nothing funny about it.”

  “No,” she agreed. “What is Bundel planning to do?”

  Lorchumn threw a brooding glance at the wall, as though he could see through the layers of stone to Bundel himself. “He didn’t want to take a human in the first place, and he has spent all this time since then caring for a mate who is full of stars. This tribe will be lucky if Bundel ever takes another mate in his life. He is not young and he is not encouraged.”

  “I can see his point.”

  Lorchumn sighed. “So can I, but I don’t share it. I want a mate, more than ever I want a mate, but it feels so much like replacing my Judith…replacing her, like a worn-out spear head.”

  “Then don’t. But go with Bundel, because he’s going to need someone like you, someone who won’t urge him to take a mate he’s not ready for either.”

  “You are the first person who hasn’t told me to finish grieving and get on with my life.” He started to walk away, then hesitated and turned back. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry if that hurts you, but I am.”

  She found herself smiling at him, and it was an honest reaction even if it wasn’t entirely free of regrets. “Would you like me to sit with you today and share your grief?”

  “Yes. But I won’t ask. You are our leader’s mate,” he said, walking away without her. “And I envy him.”

  14

  Olivia stayed in Vorgullum’s lair for a while after Lorchumn left, but couldn’t face the day with only herself for company. She went to Murgull’s secret room in the hopes of doing something useful with her day while she hid from Cheyenne’s captor, but it was empty and its hearth cold. She tried the women’s tunnels next, but found Horumn guarding the door in a foul mood. When she asked for Murgull, she got instead a fine view of Horumn’s remaining yellowed teeth in a particularly sour sneer, even for her. “Not here,” Horumn told her. “Off to make mother’s magic for that pinch-faced Victoria-maggot.”

  “May I come in to wait for her?”

  “Wait where you are.”

  “But I can help!”

  “I have had enough of human help!” Horumn spat. “The rest of your foolish kind are gathered in the hunters’ commons! Go be a nuisance to them!” And then she limped away, slamming her staff into the ground extra hard to punctuate her annoyance with all humankind.

  Olivia started away, but had gone less than a dozen steps when a sharp whisper brought her back. Cheyenne was at the door, gripping the bars like a convict in an old prison movie and looking back over her shoulder to track Horumn’s movements. When she decided they had as much privacy as they were going to get, she motioned Olivia closer and hissed, “They’re saying that crazy lady is being let go tomorrow and the whole mountain is all keyed up about it, so there’s bound to be night hunts for a while. It needs to be soon, but tomorrow is too risky—”

  “Do we have to do this right now?” Olivia demanded. “Right now?”

  “Dammit, you promised you’d have an answer for me!”

  “Fine. I do. Two things, up front,” she said, and Cheyenne’s eyes turned to slits of distrust. “Number one, I am not going to lie, so if anyone asks me directly where you are and what my part is, I’m going to tell them. Number two, I am not going to detain your guy at the risk of jeopardizing my own life. If I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, I’ll scream the mountain down. If you don’t agree to either of those conditions, too bad. You made me a party to your escape just by telling me about it, and I resent that like hell.”

  “Fair enough,” Cheyenne said after a minute of slow silence. “But is that a yes? Because I’m losing my patience with all your angst-ridden indecision. I need to know whether or not I can count on you to be where you say you’re going to be.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia, tight-lipped. “I’ll be your distraction, nothing more.”

  Cheyenne nodded once and her hands where they wrapped the iron bars of the door eased up a little. “Then meet me at the hot springs as soon as you can get away day after tomorrow, after dark.”

  “And if this doesn’t work, you’ll stop,” Olivia pressed.

  “It’ll work,” Cheyenne said grimly, and retreated in answer to Horumn’s furious bellow.

  Olivia watched her go, her stomach tying and untying itself. Being part of Cheyenne’s escape attempt, whether fated to be successful or not, made her feel sick. If she went through with it, she was betraying Vorgullum. If not, she was betraying Cheyenne. If she did it, didn’t that mean she owed it to try and help all the others who wanted out? And if not—

  God, she couldn’t think about this anymore. Her angst-ridden indecision was giving her a cramp. Murgull would be busy for a while…It was time for a bath.

  Olivia made her way through the winding, rarely-frequented tunnels that led to the Deep Drop, and they were, as usual, completely empty. It made her wonder, and not for the first time, what the gullan did for baths when the wasted ones occupied the depths.

  Probably the same thing they did without flushing toilets: Used a bucket.

  Shaking her head, Olivia donned her claws and started down. She’d been doing this long enough now that she wasn’t terribly worried about falling (even though it was just a tremendously long way to fall…she’d probably have enough time to scream twice before she hit…and she could only hope the impact would kill her right away because lying there with two hundred broken bones for even a few minutes was too horrible to contemplate), but she did find herself idly wondering about the climb back up. The last time she’d done this, she’d had someone to carry her, even if it had been Cheyenne’s someone, and even if he had taken the opportunity to molest her along the way.

  Olivia’s foot, questing for a new foothold, hit the ground instead. She looked down, surprised, and sure enough, she’d reached the bottom. Her arms were only a little tired, too. They didn’t hurt at all, not even her wrists.

  “Wel
l done.”

  Olivia shrieked and jumped straight into the Deep Drop wall, rebounded painfully, and would have fallen if not for the sudden lunge from behind that caught her up at once in a powerful gullan grip.

  She looked up into the eyes of Cheyenne’s captor.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Her mouth worked. Nothing came out.

  His brows drew together just slightly. “Why do you flinch whenever we meet?” he inquired. “Do you think I mean to eat you?”

  She remembered the glazed look in his eyes as he stopped with her halfway up the chasm. Remembered how his hands crawled over her body, pulling her against him with single-minded resolve. And then she remembered his fierce, contemplative gaze as he watched her across a sea of gullan as pregnant Bolga was held up before them.

  “No,” Olivia managed. “Of course not. I’m just not used to people who sneak up behind me in the dark to grab me.”

  He released her, opening his arms and fully expanding his wings with a slow, deliberate courtesy that could not help but seem sarcastic. “I apologize,” he said. “On our next meeting, I will stand politely by and watch you fall.”

  “I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t frightened me,” she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t admitted to fear. There was no way to take it back, so she tried to turn it into a joke, blurting, “You need to wear a bell.”

  “Do I?” He smiled, but had far too many sharp teeth to pull it off in anything like a friendly fashion. “But then I would lose so many opportunities to have women throw themselves against me.”

  “I’m certain you restrain yourself admirably,” she said, looking for some way, any way, out of this conversation.